Conviction of US-origin terror suspects held in Pak could be difficult: Experts - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Even though the much-awaited trial of five American-origin terror suspects detained in Pakistan began in Sargodha city on Monday, their conviction may not come as easily due to inconclusive evidence against the young US citizens, according to experts. While the Pakistani police is pressing life sentences against the terror suspects, the group has denied plotting terror attacks. The Christian Science Monitor quoted observers, as saying that convicting the men may prove to be difficult in the face of what appears to be inconclusive evidence. Police have been given until the next hearing on Jan. 18 to make their case. The five young Muslims were detained in early December in a case, which has raised fears over young Westerners travelling to Pakistan to receive training and fight coalition forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. According to investigators, the group had also been in contact with an Arab American named Saifullah who had promised to ensure their passage to Afghanistan to fight US forces there. The members of the group are Umar Farooq, Waqar Khan, Ahmed Minni, Aman Hassan Yemer, and Ramy Zamzam. "Visiting Pakistan on valid visas is not a crime. It may be difficult to make the charges stick," says Badar Alam, a senior editor at Herald, a leading Pakistani monthly magazine. The Pakistani authorities may rely on a confession by the men made to investigators that they planned to go to Afghanistan and fight. The men's defense lawyer Ameer Abdullah Rokri has said that the group "only intended to travel to Afghanistan to help their Muslim brothers who are in trouble, who are bleeding and who are being victimized by Western forces".