Pakistani court sentences Sunni militant to death

MULTAN, Pakistan, May 31 (Reuters) A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has sentenced an Islamist militant to death for an attack on a gathering of Shi'ite Muslims seven years ago that killed 16 people, a lawyer said today.

The convict, Qari Omar Hayat, belonged to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, one of the most feared militant groups blamed for most attacks on minority Shi'ite Muslims in Pakistan.

Hayat and three other militants were convicted yesterday for firing on a crowd of Shi'ite Muslims near the town of Muzaffargarh in central Punjab province in 1999, said state prosecutor Malik Najaf Ali Mahe.

''He was one of the attackers who fired at the gathering with a Kalashnikov rifle. The three other attackers have already been killed in police encounters,'' Mahe told Reuters.

Hayat had the right to appeal.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which the government outlawed in August 2001, had ties with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and al Qaeda militants.

It has been implicated in several attacks on Western targets since Pakistan joined the US-led war on terrorism following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Police blame the group for most attacks on Shi'ite Muslims, who account for about 15 per cent of Pakistan's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population of 150 million.

Thousands of people have been killed in tit-for-tat attacks by Sunni and Shi'ite militants across Pakistan over the past 25 years.

REUTERS SES SSC1343