SARGODHA (Agencies) Special anti-terror court Sargodha has sent five arrested US citizens to jail and acquitted the sixth accused. Five Americans facing terror charges for allegedly plotting attacks in Pakistan appeared in court Monday, telling a judge they wanted to help Muslims in war-torn Afghanistan, lawyers said. The men appeared briefly in the courtroom in Sargodha, handcuffed and casually dressed. Two unarmed police guards were present in the courtroom as elite police commandos guarded the premises. Questioned by Judge Anwer Nazeer, two of the men denied links to Al-Qaeda but said they were trying to travel to Afghanistan, where US, NATO and Afghan forces are fighting a worsening eight-year Taliban insurgency. One of the suspects said that they were going to Afghanistan to help the Muslims, said public prosecutor Nadeem Akram Cheema. When the judge addressed them and said 'so you admit that you were going to Afghanistan, another suspect said 'yes, we were going to Afghanistan to help Muslims, Cheema said, without naming the suspects who spoke. Defence lawyer Amir Abdullah Rokri told AFP that his clients denied sending an email to an Al-Qaeda-linked figure named Saifullah. They told the judge that they have neither committed any crime in Pakistan, nor had they any intention to do so. They were going to Afghanistan to help injured and homeless people, Rokri said. Cheema said police requested the five be remanded into custody, while Khalid Farooq, the Pakistani father of one of the detained US national Umer Farooq, be freed due to lack of evidence. Police requested the court to discharge Khalid Farooq as there is no evidence against him and he had been convincing and trying to stop his sons from going for jihad, Cheema said. Both requests were granted on Monday. The court released Khalid Farooq and sent the others on judicial remand, Rokri told AFP. The next hearing will be on January 18. Sargodha police chief Usman Anwar confirmed that Farooq had been freed from custody and sent home. We will try to complete and file the charges of the remaining suspects as soon as possible in the court, he told AFP, adding that they hoped to have their report finished in time for the next hearing. Police have said investigations into the mens activities are complete, with the court requested to file charges under the anti-terrorism act. It has now been established that the five men had contacts with militants, some of them foreigners, in South Waziristan, and they had come to Pakistan to carry out acts of terror, senior police official Tahir Gujjar said Saturday.