A Pakistani court sentenced three Islamic militants...

A Pakistani court sentenced three Islamic militants to death for plotting a May 2002 suicide car bomb attack that killed 11 French naval engineers and two Pakistani bystanders in the southern port city Karachi. "The case against Asif Zaheer and Mohammad Bashir, and Mohammad Sohail who was tried in absentia, has been proven," Judge Feroz Mehmood Bhatti told a special anti-terrorism court set up inside Karachi's Central Jail for security. "Hereby they are sentenced to death." All three were found guilty of using explosives, murder and terrorism. Zaheer and Bashir, handcuffed and wearing traditional long smocks over trousers, were calm as the judge read out the verdicts and sentences. Prosecutors said they were among seven people who planned the attack on 8 May 2002, when a suicide bomber rammed a Toyota Corolla sedan packed with 140 to 150 kilograms into a bus carrying the French naval engineers. The bus was picking the Frenchmen up from the Sheraton hotel to take them to Karachi's naval dockyards, where they were helping Pakistan's navy build its first locally constructed Agosta B-90 submarine. Chief prosecutor Maula Bux Bhatti said he was satisfied with the judgement. "It was the worst suicide attack in Pakistan, against French engineers who were working for Pakistani interests, in a pre-planned operation," he told reporters after the hearing.