Five tell Pak court about Mumbai attack training

Five prosecution witnesses today testified before a Pakistani anti-terrorism judge about the training of the terrorists who carried out the November 2008 assault on Mumbai, official sources said.

The witnesses, including intelligence operatives and officials of the Federal Investigation Agency, appeared before Judge Chaudhry Habib-ur-Rehman of the Rawalpindi-based anti-terrorism court and recorded their statements during proceedings held behind closed doors at Adiala Jail.

Sources familiar with proceedings said the witnesses gave the court details of the training camps where the attackers had prepared for the assault on Mumbai.

FIA Special Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told PTI that he could not discuss today's proceedings as they involved matters of "national interest".

But sources said much of the testimony of the five witnesses focused on the terrorist training camps that were attended by the attackers. After recording the statements of the witnesses, the judge adjourned the case until October 13.

During a public hearing organised by the Senate standing committee on defence and defence production on Friday, former FIA chief Tariq Pervez Khosa said that sleuths had uncovered two Lashkar-e-Toiba training camps in Sindh province that were used by militants involved in the Mumbai attacks.

Khosa, who supervised the probe into the Mumbai incident, said investigators had found LeT camps at Thatta and Karachi, the capital of Sindh province.

Khwaja Haris Ahmed, counsel for LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, said defence lawyers would cross-examine the five prosecution witnesses at the next hearing.

Lakhvi and six other suspects have been charged with planning, financing and facilitating the attacks that killed 166 people.

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