August 15, 2008	Friday	Sha'aban 12, 1429

MADRID, Aug 14: Dutch authorities on Thursday extradited to Spain a Pakistani man suspected of belonging to a group planning suicide attacks in Barcelona and elsewhere in Europe, Spain’s interior ministry said.

Spain’s anti-terrorist court on June 5 charged Aqueel Ur Rehman Abbasi and 10 other South Asians, most of them Pakistanis, with belonging to a terrorist group.

The other 10 had been arrested in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, in January in a series of raids during which police also recovered bomb-making equipment.

The court issued a warrant for Abbasi, who was arrested on June 6 in his prison cell in the Netherlands where he was being held by the immigration and naturalisation services.

Dutch judicial authorities approved his extradition last week, and he was transferred to Spain on Thursday, Spain’s interior ministry said.

The cell is suspected of planning suicide bombings in the Barcelona metro and other European cities.

After the arrests, Spain’s intelligence services had warned Paris, London and Lisbon of the threat of terrorist attacks linked to a European tour by President Pervez Musharraf.—AFP