Judge hits out over cricket team attack

Senior Pakistani police officers have been heavily criticised in a judge's report for being ill-prepared, poorly equipped and incompetent in their efforts to prevent a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team bus last year.

Calling one officer "a lazy coward", Shabbar Raza Rizvi of Lahore High Court identified more than a dozen senior policemen in a report on the attack that is due to be submitted to the International Cricket Council.

Mr Rizvi wrote that police officials failed to perform their duties on 3 March, 2009 when gunmen killed six policemen and a van driver in the team convoy, and injured several Sri Lankan players and team officials.

Senior Lahore police officer Haji Habibur Rehman was supposed to be the overall commander of the Sri Lankan team's security, but Mr Rizvi said he failed to do his job.

"I wish I had seen him marching on the road . . . or at least sitting in his office before 8am.," Mr Rizvi wrote. "Unfortunately, he only became visible and audible after the occurrence had taken place."

After the attack, the ICC ruled that Pakistan could no longer serve as one of the hosts for the 2011 World Cup and the Pakistan team was forced to host its home matches at neutral venues - it has instead used the United Arab Emirates and England as bases.

In his report, Mr Rizvi also criticized police deputy inspector general Amjad Javed Saleemi for a "dereliction of duty".