A group of 10 suicide attackers stormed the army's General Headquarters in October 2009 and killed 11 people and held dozens of army personnel hostage for nearly 20 hours.
The Pakistani military is conducting the court martial of seven men charged with involvement in a terrorist attack on the army’s headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in 2009, a defence lawyer has said.
A brigadier is heading the trial that began on January 24 though the army has kept the proceedings secret.
Inam-ur-Rehman, a lawyer for the accused, said civilians cannot be tried by court martial on such charges.
Rehman contended that only civilians accused of spying on Pakistan's military installations for an enemy state or of inciting a mutiny in the military can be court martialled, according to a report on the website of BBC Urdu.
A group of 10 suicide attackers stormed the army's General Headquarters in October 2009 and killed 11 people and held dozens of army personnel hostage for nearly 20 hours.
The attackers entered the GHQ complex after killing guards at the main gate.
Nine attackers were killed in an operation by commandos while one identified as Aqeel alias Doctor Usman was arrested in an injured condition.
Army investigators arrested six more persons on the basis of information provided by Aqeel a few days after the attack.
These seven men are now being tried by the military court.
Aqeel's friend Imran, a former army medical corps personnel, is among the suspects.
The others are Khaliq-ur-Rehman, Usman Aaka, Wajid Mehmood, Muhammad Adnan and Tahir Shafeeq, all believed to be friends of Aqeel.
The prosecution has alleged that the six men were aware of the terrorist plan to attack the GHQ and had helped Aqeel.
But lawyer Inam-ur-Rehman said the military court has no jurisdiction to hear the charges framed against his clients.
He said he had told the court that nine of the 10 attackers were killed and that civilians were not involved in the attack.
Rehman also said no weapon was recovered from the accused and they could not be linked to the attack.
He said the accused had been in the custody of the army's "secret agencies" and their relatives had not been informed about their whereabouts.
After relatives of the accused contacted human rights groups, they were included in the list of "missing persons" or people being detained without charge by security and intelligence agencies.
Rehman alleged that he was not allowed to meet separately with his clients during the military court’s proceedings.
Five of the accused were among a group of "missing persons" who were released on the Supreme Court's orders a few months ago but security agencies arrested them again without informing the court.
After receiving a notice from the court, a government lawyer confirmed in the apex court that the men were in the custody of security agencies.
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