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Pakistan court convicts two men for Americans' murder

A Pakistani court today sentenced two men to death for the 1997 murder of four US citizens and their Pakistani driver, court officials and witnesses said.

An anti-terrorism court in Karachi found Ahmed Saeed, 29, and Muhammad Saleem, 39, guilty of the murders.

The two convicted men belonged to Karachi's powerful Mutehida Qaumi Movement party.

Gunmen ambushed and killed four US citizens and their driver in Karachi in November 1997. The four, all auditors with Houston-based Union Texas Petroleum Holdings, were in Karachi on routine company business.

Those killed in the attack were Ephraim Egbu, 42, Tracy Ritchie, 41, Joel Enlow, 40, and Larry Jennings, 49. Their Pakistani driver, Anwar Mirza, also died in the attack.

A police investigation officer told reporters after the judgement that two other suspects in the murder were still at large.

"Four persons took part in the operation... Two are still at large," Investigation Officer Chaudhry Aslam told reporters.

One of the two convicted men, Saeed, told reporters that he was innocent and would appeal to a higher court against the verdict.

"We have been punished for our allegiance to the Quaid [the leader]," he said, referring to the MQM chief who is in exile in London.

Pakistan police said at the time of the 1997 ambush that the killings could have been linked to the conviction in Virginia of a Pakistani, Mir Aimal Kansi, for murdering two employees of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1993.

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