Reuters Photo

A car packed with explosives blew up outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi on May 8 last year, killing the Frenchmen, who were helping Pakistan build submarines. Three Pakistanis, including the bomber, also died.

Two of the men convicted, Asif Zaheer and Rizwan Ahmed Basheer, appeared for the sentencing at Karachi's Central Prison. A third man, Mohammad Sohail, who is on the run, was sentenced to death in absentia.

Zaheer and Basheer had pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, terrorism, possession of explosives and conspiracy.

Judge Feroze Mahmood Bhatti said he found the men guilty of planning the attack, which also wounded 23 people, and of the other charges.

"Therefore the court gives them the death sentence," he said.

A fourth man, Adnan Qamar, was acquitted in absentia.

"It was a well-planned conspiracy," Bhatti said. "A vehicle was crashed into the bus carrying French engineers. It was a terrorist incident."

Police said the militants belonged to Harkat-ul Mujahideen Al-alami group, which is a shadowy breakaway faction of the Harkat-ul Mujahideen group fighting Indian forces in the disputed region of Kashmir (news - web sites).

Harkat-ul Mujahideen was previously known as Harkat-ul Ansar, but changed its name after being declared a terrorist group by the United States in the late 1990s.

APPEAL PLAN

Haroon al-Qasmi, a defense lawyer for Zaheer, said he would challenge the verdict in the High Court. "We are 100 percent sure that the High Court will acquit them," he said.

The trial was held in a specially built courtroom inside the Karachi Central Jail.

Outside the main prison gate, some of the relatives of the two men wailed and cried.

Earlier this year, a Pakistani court convicted four men of a similar suicide attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi last year that killed 12 Pakistanis.

Last year, British born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi.

Execution in Pakistan is carried out by hanging, but only after an exhaustive appeal process.

Pakistan saw a spate of attacks on foreigners, Christians and government officials last year, which police blamed on Islamic hard-liners outraged at Pakistan's support for the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan (news - web sites).

Basheer's grandmother Afroze Begum said her grandson was given the death sentence simply to please the United States.

"He is innocent," she cried, wearing an all-enveloping black veiled garment favored by conservative Muslims. "(President Pervez) Musharraf is inviting Allah's wrath."

However, Abdul Razzaq, Basheer's father, said his son had a long association with Harkat-ul Mujahideen. "He has participated in jihad (holy war) in Kashmir," he said.