PARIS, Nov 27: The French police say they’ve arrested several Pakistani nationals during a raid in Paris of suspected cohorts of accused shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
The individuals were picked up in the tenth arrondissement of Paris notably at a Pakistani cultural center as well as a restaurant and a mosque — Mosque Ali, according to police sources — serving the local Pakistani community.
During a parallel raid undertaken on Reunion Island, a French department located in the Indian Ocean, a former Imam of the Ali Mosque, who is also a Pakistani national, say police — was also picked up and is scheduled too to undergo questioning by French police.
The raid was the third in three days, and was undertaken by the members of two crack police units — the Brigade Criminelle and the Brigade de Recherche et d’Intervention — both of which were operating under the orders of Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who is presently directing a massive investigation of terrorist activity on French soil.
The Pakistanis who were picked up during the raid on Tuesday morning, police say, they will be detained during 96 hours [four days] — the amount of time allowed by the law — and are to be interrogated as to their alleged links with Richard Reid.
Earlier this year, another Pakistani national, proprietor of a cybercafe and international phonecall centre also located in the tenth arrondissement of Paris.
