[JURIST] Three men were sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for a 2002 attempt to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf [official website; BBC profile]. Mohammad Imran, Mohammad Hanif and Mohammad Ashraf, all thought to belong to the Harkut ul-Mujahideen al-Almi {MIPT backgrounder] terror group, were originally sentenced to 10 years each in 2003, but appealed their convictions. The Sindh High Court [official website] ordered new trials in 2006. Three other men were acquitted of charges related to the attack. The plot failed when a bomb planted in a roadside car in Karachi failed to detonate as Musharraf's motorcade passed. BBC News has more.

In 2005, a Pakistan [JURIST news archive] military court sentenced four men to death and two others to life imprisonment [JURIST report] for their roles in another attempted assassination of Musharraf in 2003. A statement by the Pakistan Air Force said the six low-ranking military staff members had been tried over a six-month period for the Dec. 13, 2003, attempt to bomb a motorcade Musharraf was traveling with in Rawalpindi. Two other men had previously been convicted in connection with the attack, one of whom was put to death, while five others were tried and sentenced to death for a separate assassination attempt later that month.