Russia wants access to President’s attacker

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan was considering giving the Russian consulate access to a man it believes to be Russian who is on death row over his involvement in a 2003 attempt to kill President Pervez Musharraf.
Akhlas Ahmed, also known as Akhlak Akhlas, was sentenced to hang along with four others by a military court last month for the attack in which two suicide bombers rammed vehicles into Musharraf’s motorcade.
Fourteen people, including the bombers, died in the December 25 attack.
“We have received Moscow’s request for consular access and it is under consideration,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told on Wednesday.
“We have yet to establish if he is indeed a Russian citizen and in custody,” she said. The Interior Ministry has been asked to check his status. The Russian foreign ministry said late Tuesday the man in Pakistan custody was holding a Russian passport.
It said it had asked Pakistan authorities for a meeting with Akhlas, son of a Pakistani father and a Russian mother. Pakistan had not informed Russia that its citizen was involved in the case, the Russian foreign ministry said.—Agencies