Death sentence for Karachi two

Two Pakistani men were convicted and sentenced to death yesterday for the slaying of four American oil workers in the port city of Karachi in 1997.

The defendants, Ahmed Saeed and Mohammed Salim, are members of the ethnic-based Muttahida Qami Movement (MQM), which represents Urdu- speaking people who migrated from India in 1947.

"I was mentally prepared for this conviction, but I am innocent," Saeed said when the verdict and sentence were read.

Saeed said he was in hospital having his appendix removed when the killings took place and has submitted his hospital records to the judge. Defence lawyers said the court did not allow them to produce a doctor to substantiate Saeed's claim.

The special anti-terrorism court also sentenced the men to seven years' "rigorous imprisonment" for the possession of illegal weapons.

Saeed was unemployed at the time of his arrest, and Salim, the father of six children, was working as a mechanic.

The pair were charged in January 1999 with killing four American employees of Union Texas Petroleum and their Pakistani driver in a daylight attack. The four Americans were in Pakistan completing an audit of the Houston-based company. The group were en route to the Union Texas office when gunmen hit.

The US government posted a $2 million reward and promised to protect informants with information leading to the arrest of the killers.

The MQM and the suspects have denied any involvement in the case, and the group's leader, Farooq Saddar, said the men will appeal.

Saddar also warned that MQM supporters could cause "serious problems" if a new trial did not take place. He refused to specify the problems, but the MQM routinely calls strikes and stages street protests.

The killings came two days after a court in Virginia convicted a Pakistani man, Aimal Kansi, of first-degree murder for the 1993 shootings of two CIA employees. The two were shot in their cars at traffic lights outside CIA headquarters. At the time, Pakistani police said they suspected the Karachi killings were in response to the convictions in Virginia, but no formal link was ever made.

In 1995, two US Consulate employees were shot and killed in Karachi. The gunmen in that slaying have not been arrested, although hundreds of people have been questioned by police.

Copyright 1999
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