Pakistan to try 5 Americans over terrorism charges
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Pakistani will try five American men over terrorism charges who were believed to have gone missing from the Washington, D.C. area last month, and arrested earlier this month in the South Asian country, a senior official said Thursday.
District Police Officer Dr. Usman told a news conference in the northeastern Pakistani city of Sargodha that interrogation of the suspects has been completed and they would be tried over terrorism charges.
The men, between 18 and 20, were taken into custody earlier this month in a raid on a house in Sarghoda, 190 kms southeast of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, in the eastern Punjab province.
Usman said that all men will be produced in an anti-terrorism court Friday and the court will be requested to hand over the accused to police for further questioning.
Usman said that links of the arrested men with Pakistani banned groups have been proved during investigation and terrorism charges have been registered against them.
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents have also interrogated the five young American Muslims after their arrest who wanted to go to Afghanistan to fight U.S.-led forces, according to Pakistani police.
The five students from northern Virginia tried to contact militants and stayed in touch with each other through the internet, Usman said, adding that all data of electronic mails and computer data have been got as evidence.
Two are of Pakistani origin, one of Egyptian origin, one of Yemeni origin and one of Eritrean origin, officials said.
There have been reports that Pakistan wanted to deport them to the U.S. but a court in Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab, have blocked their deportation.
The five had visited a religious seminary linked to the outlawed "Jaish-e-Mohammad" militant group in the southern city of Hyderabad, police said. They had also stayed in Karachi and Lahore and wanted to join Jihad, officials said.
Police said that they had found maps from them and that they wanted to proceed to Miranshah, the center of North Waziristan tribal region to join the militants there and to cross into Afghanistan, officials said.
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