Islamabad, March 2 (DPA) Prosecutors Tuesday laid out terror charges in a Pakistani court against five US citizens arrested last year for suspected links with Al Qaeda, a state lawyer said.

The men, all believed to be aged in their 20s, were arrested in Pakistan's eastern city of Sargodha in December, days after they arrived from the US state of Virginia.

Prosecutor Nadeem Akram said the charges presented to the court in Sargodha city included waging war against Pakistan and planning to carry out terrorist attacks in the country.

The judge set the March 10 for the next hearing. If convicted, the defendants could get life imprisonment.

Defence lawyers said earlier that the five men were en route to Afghanistan and had no plans for any terrorist activity in Pakistan.

Relatives of the five suspects reported them missing in November. Two of them are of Pakistani origin and the three others of Egyptian, Yemeni and Eritrean descent.

--dpa

aj/vt