ATHENS, Jan 3: Three Pakistanis at the centre of an alleged detention case that embroils Greece and Britain on Tuesday insisted that they were abducted, interrogated and mistreated by men claiming to be Greek police after last year’s London Underground and bus attacks.
Muhammad Munir, Azhar Mahmood and Shoukat Nawaz told a press conference that up to a dozen plainclothes men arrived at their apartment in the Athens district of Petralona on July 15, eight days after the London blasts.
“They told us they were police, but did not show us any identification,” Munir said through a translator.
“They asked for my cellphone, and when I told them I didn’t have one, they took me to a side room, handcuffed me and began to beat me.”
“We heard noise, and then Munir emerged with a bleeding lip, holding his head,” said Mahmood.
The three men said they were interrogated at two unidentified locations somewhere in the capital for up to a week, before being released.
The Pakistanis — part of a group of 28 who claim they were similarly mistreated — have pressed charges against seven Greek intelligence agents and a man reported to be the Athens station chief of MI6, the British overseas intelligence agency, after a Greek weekly newspaper named them as participants in the incident.
The Pakistanis’ Greek lawyer, Frangiskos Ragoussis, has pressed torture charges against the abductors, who allegedly included “one or two foreigners speaking English.”
Lawyer Ragoussis said he was looking for a picture of the alleged MI6 agent, so that his clients could identify him.—AFP
