COLOMBO, Nov 7: Ten men whom police suspect of involvement in a bombing that wounded 12 foreign tourists in the Maldives fled to Pakistan before officers could arrest them, police alleged on Wednesday.

Officials managed to round up six of 16 local men suspected of involvement in the planning of the attack and assembling of the bomb, but the other 10 escaped to Pakistan, Maldives police said in a statement.

The statement did not say when the suspects were arrested or when the other men fled, and it did not explain how police knew they had gone to Pakistan.

Among the six people held in police custody is an immigration official who apparently helped two of the suspects escape the Maldives, the statement said. It did not mention if the six have been charged, or what charges they might face.

Eight Chinese, two Britons and two Japanese were wounded in the Sept 29 blast outside Sultan Park in the capital Male, the first such incident to be reported from the Indian Ocean archipelago.

The Maldives, which has a Muslim population of about 350,000, is by far the wealthiest _ and most orderly _ country in south Asia. About 600,000 tourists visit the country each year, accounting for one-third of its economy.

Attacks against the tourist trade are virtually unheard of, though there has been tension and occasional outbreaks of violence in recent years between opposition activists and government forces, who are controlled by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who has ruled the country for 29 years.—AP