Air Force employees sentenced to death for plot

PAKISTAN - Four low-ranking employees of Pakistan's Air Force have been sentenced to death and two received life prison terms for playing a role in a plot to kill President General Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistan Air Force spokesman Sarfraz Ahmad said the six men were arrested after the 2003 assassination attempt near Islamabad. Ahmed would not identify the men and only said "they were found guilty of the charges."

Musharraf escaped unhurt on December 14, 2003, when al Qaeda-linked militants tried to blow up his motorcade on a road in Rawalpindi, a city near Islamabad, the capital.

Meanwhile, Pakistani interrogators are questioning the shadowy chief spokesman of Afghanistan's hardline Islamic Taleban militia. Security forces seized Abdul Latif Hakimi, who often spoke to international media to claim responsibility for attacks on US and Afghan forces, in a raid on a house in Quetta.