Pakistani child 'forced into suicide vest'

21 June 2011 Last updated at 07:28 GMT Sohana was 'kidnapped' to carry out a suicide attack A nine-year-old girl in Pakistan has said that she was taken and forced to wear an explosive vest in what police say was a planned militant attack.

Sohana Jawed was abducted several days ago from her home in Peshawar and taken to an area near the Afghan border, according to police in Lower Dir.

Sohana told a press conference there that she was put in a suicide vest and told to stand near some soldiers, but she threw the vest off and ran away.

Suicide attacks by girls are rare.

But militants in Pakistan have often recruited young boys to carry out suicide attacks.

Sohana told her story at a press conference organisd by police in Lower Dir on Monday.

But the authorities in Peshawar say they have not received a complaint of a missing girl and have not identified a resident with her name, the Associated Press news agency reports.

'Unconscious'

Sohana said that she was kidnapped by two women while on her way to school and forced into a car carrying two men.

One of the kidnappers put a handkerchief over her mouth and she became unconscious, she said.

When she woke up and started crying, one of the women gave her some biscuits, she said. She said she became unconscious again after consuming the biscuits.

Sohana said when she woke up next she found herself in a house.

" In the evening they gave me bisuits, and then put me to sleep again. When I came to in the morning, they put this this thing on me which wouldn't explode," she said.

Police official Salim Marwat said the vest contained 9kg (20 pounds) of explosives, the AP news agency reports.

"Most likely it had to be detonated through a remote control since a minor was wearing it," he is quoted as saying.

The kidnappers appear to have brought her to a paramilitary checkpoint outside Timergarah, the main town in Lower Dir.

She said that she then started shouting as she approached the checkpoint and threw the vest away.

"I got the chance to release my hand from the woman and run," Sohana said.

Police say they have launched an operation to search the kidnappers who escaped.

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US mother in child death trial

24 May 2011 Last updated at 14:26 GMT Ms Anthony says a babysitter kidnapped her daughter The trial has opened in Florida of a young US woman accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter in 2008.

Prosecutors base their case on forensic evidence they say shows Casey Anthony, 25, kept Caylee Anthony's dead body in the boot of her car.

But they have no witnesses or confession linking Ms Anthony to the 2008 death, and forensic experts are unable to say how the child died.

Ms Anthony has pleaded not guilty, and says a babysitter kidnapped the child.

The trial is being held in Orlando in the US state of Florida, though jurors are being selected elsewhere due to the intense media scrutiny the case has garnered there.

Weeks to report

Her lawyers are expected to argue she was in jail when the child's body was left in a wood.

If she is found guilty of first-degree murder, she could face the death penalty.

Ms Anthony is also charged with aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and providing false information to law enforcement.

Ms Anthony drew investigators' attention when it was learned she waited weeks to tell her mother the child was missing.

Caylee's decomposed body was found in December 2008 in a patch of woods near her house.

Ms Anthony's mother reported smelling something like a dead body emanating from the boot of Ms Anthony's car. And there, prosecutors say forensic experts found traces of chloroform.

Ms Anthony's lawyers will say the foul smell came from a bag of rotting rubbish, but prosecutors plan to offer a novel form of forensic science they say shows chemical compounds from decomposition were present in the boot.

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