A Pakistani court delayed a closed-door hearing Saturday to charge five suspects in last year's Mumbai terrorist attacks, a defense lawyer said.
Pakistan's prosecution of suspects in the November killings of 166 people in India's financial capital is considered a test of its commitment to eradicate Islamist militancy. Any delay could strain its relations with its giant South Asian rival, which has already condemned another court's release of a founder of the Pakistan-based militant group India blames for the attacks.
The judge in a special anti-terrorism court ordered the weeklong adjournment because the prosecution failed to provide one defense lawyer copies of the charge sheet, said Shahbaz Rajput, who is representing one of the suspects. He said a new hearing was scheduled for Sept. 5.
"Once the copies are provided and the court is satisfied that the prosecution has completed the charge sheet, only then will the suspects be charged," Rajput said.
Media were not allowed into the anti-terrorism court proceedings, which were held in a maximum security prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Pointing to the case against the five men, Pakistan insists it is doing its part to bring the Mumbai attackers to justice. But Islamabad has rejected Indian demands to extradite the suspects.
The five suspects have alleged links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Islamist insurgent group India says sent armed teams from Pakistan by boat to Mumbai, where they rampaged through the city killing people in hotels, train stations and a Jewish center.
One of the five, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, is accused of masterminding the attacks, while the four others acted as facilitators and managed funds and hide-outs used by the attackers, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said.
Indian security forces killed nine of the Mumbai attackers. The only suspect caught alive, Ajmal Kasab, a 21-year-old Pakistani, confessed in an Indian court in July to taking part.
India last week sent a dossier of new evidence it says links Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, one of the founders Lashkar-e-Taiba, to the attacks.
Pakistan arrested Saeed in December after India provided a dossier of evidence in a rare sharing of intelligence. But in June, a Pakistani court freed Saeed from house arrest, saying there was not enough evidence to hold him.