Pak court concludes trial of five American Muslim youths

A Pakistani court today concluded the trial of five American Muslim youths charged with terrorism and the judge has said he will announce the verdict tomorrow.

After hearing concluding arguments from the prosecution and defence lawyers, judge Mian Anwar Nazir of the anti-terrorism court in Sargodha closed the proceedings and reserved his verdict till tomorrow.

Defence lawyer Hassan Katchela told reporters that the judge was expected to announce his judgement tomorrow.

The five Americans, Ramy Zamzam, 22, Waqar Hussain Khan, 22, Ahmed Abdullah Minni, 20, Iman Hasan Yemer, 17 and Omar Farooq, 24, were arrested in Sargodha in December last year on charges of having links with banned terror groups.

Authorities alleged they were planning to carry out terror attacks in Pakistan and to travel to Afghanistan to fight with militants against US-led forces in that country.

The trial of the five youths is being conducted in Sargodha jail for security reasons.

The defence lawyers maintained in their concluding arguments that the Americans were innocent and had no links to terrorist activities.

The prosecution produced the confessional statement of one of the accused, electronic evidence gleaned from computers and emails between the accused and their contact Qari Saifullah, believed to be an al-Qaeda operative.

The Americans were indicted in March and face life in prison if convicted. Public prosecutor Nadeem Akram Cheema told reporters outside the court that the government would appeal any acquittal.