Washington: Eric Benn, an imagery expert with the Defence Intelligence Agency of the United States, has disputed Pakistan's claim that it does not have terrorist training camps in its territory.

In the trial of 23-year-old Pakistani American Hamid Hayat, accused of terrorism-related charges, Mr. Benn said there was a 70 per cent "probability" that satellite images pointed to a militant training camp near Balakot in northeast Pakistan.

Mr. Benn told the district court in California that although he did not "detect any formal weapons training," including firing ranges, targets, rocket launchers or explosives testing, it did not mean they were not taking place.

The structures and trail in the remote terrain fit the "signature of militant training," as opposed to regular training of Pakistan's armed forces, he said.

Hamid's sentencing has been postponed by the court by four months to November and his father Umer Hayat, who at one time was charged with lying to federal authorities, is being retried after the first round ended in a hung jury, according to media reports.

The allegation against Hamid had been that from California's Lodi area, which has a small Pakistani immigrant community, the 23-year-old went to Pakistan to attend a religious school and training for terrorism with the intent of returning to the U.S. to commit violent acts.

The reports said Hamid, who was to be sentenced on July 14, is facing charges of militancy and "jihad," which can give him a jail term of as many as 39 years.

The federal prosecutors want to nail their suspect — and indirectly Pakistan — in the terror training camp case.

The defence has argued that Hamid never attended any terror facility but only made up the story to satisfy FBI agents, who grilled him in June last year.

The FBI rolled out Mr. Benn, who on the basis of satellite photos of areas, initially argued that there was perhaps a 50 per cent ``possibility'' of a ``militant training camp'' in northeast Pakistan.

But after viewing Hamid's confession to the FBI, the analyst concluded that there was 70 per cent ``probability'' that the satellite images pointed to a militant training camp.

Mountainous terrain

Hamid's jury was shown satellite images taken between 2001 and 2004 of a forest, which was on a mountainous terrain and about 10 km from Balakot.

Mr. Benn also identified a three km trail linked to the main road and dotted with several structures that seemed to reflect a guard house, barracks with a tin roof and perhaps some mud houses as well, the reports said.

At the time of the trial, Mr. Benn also made the point that the facility in question seemed to expand.

``It may have become less temporary and more permanent,'' he testified.

Hamid's initial confession was that he underwent training in the camp, with Mr. Benn stressing that the youth's descriptions of the layout were ``consistent with the physical things I observed'' in the satellite images and which brought about the ``60 to 70 per cent'' certainty of the images depicting a militant training camp.

But Hamid confessed later that he was at camps in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tora Bora, where Osama bin Laden is believed to have taken refuge at one time. — PTI

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