Would-be assassin escapes

last updated 8 January 2015

Rawalpindi, Pakistan

A man who tried to kill President Pervez Musharraf escaped from custody in northern Pakistan and has been on the run for weeks, security services revealed this week. Mushtaq Ahmed allegedly helped al Qaida bombers who tried to blow up a Rawalpindi bridge as Musharraf’s motorcade crossed it in December 2003. Ahmed was sentenced to death last November, but he escaped just a few days after his trial, when he was allowed to go to the bathroom alone. Officials would not say why they waited so long to report the escape, but Pakistani media speculated that authorities were embarrassed because it might have been an inside job. Ahmed, 26, speaks English, Urdu, and Farsi, and officials said he might already have left the country.