Five American men were convicted on Thursday on “terror” charges by a Pakistani court and sentenced to 10 years in prison in a case that has heightened concerns about Westerners traveling to Pakistan to contact Islamist extremist groups.
Five US citizens were sentenced to ten years in prison in Pakistan for contacting militant groups and plotting attacks against US troops in Afghanistan. The five offenders, all male students in their twenties, were arrested in December 2009 shortly after arriving from the United States. Umar Farooq, Ahmed Minni, Aman Hassan Yemer, Waqar Khan, and Ramy Zamzam claimed they had been tortured since their arrest and that they had traveled to Pakistan to help provide financial and medical support to fellow Muslims in Afghanistan.