2 Pakistanis to Die for Killing 4 U.S. Workers, Driver in ’97

Nearly two years after four American oil workers and their Pakistani driver were gunned down in a daring daylight attack, two Pakistani men were sentenced Saturday to die for the crime.

A special anti-terrorist court convicted and sentenced Ahmed Saeed, 29, and Mohammed Salim, 39, for the November 1997 slayings in the port city of Karachi. The men also were sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment for possession of illegal weapons.

The pair were charged in January with killing four American employees of Union Texas Petroleum Holdings Inc. and their driver as the five sat stuck in traffic.

The Pakistani men are members of the ethnic-based Mohajir National Movement, or MQM, which represents Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated from India in 1947.

Saeed said he was in the hospital having his appendix removed when the killings took place and has submitted his hospital records to the judge. Defense lawyers said the court did not allow them to produce a doctor to substantiate Saeed’s claim.

The men will appeal, said Farooq Sattar, an MQM leader. He warned that MQM supporters could cause “serious problems” if a new trial is not held.

In recent months, the MQM has been one of the targets of a government crackdown on rampant violence in Karachi, the country’s largest city. The MQM, which dominates Karachi, accuses Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government of trying to destroy the MQM’s political power base.

The Karachi killings came two days after a court in Virginia convicted a Pakistani man of first-degree murder in the 1993 shootings of two CIA employees. Pakistani police said at the time that they suspected the Karachi killings were in response to the conviction, but no formal link has been established.