There are 2 timeouts in HTTPClient, try setting both parameters
client.getHttpConnectionManager().
getParams().setConnectionTimeout(5000);
client.getHttpConnectionManager().
getParams().setSoTimeout(5000);
However, the values will be ignored if the connection is stuck in calling its own socket. Therefore, you may need to run the request in a different thread so that you can disable it. See my answer to this question on how to do this,
java -