LAHORE, May 2: Families of six Pakistanis killed in Macedonia are planning to sue the Macedonian government for compensation. "We have decided to initiate legal action after the Macedonian government admitted that the six youngsters killed two years ago were innocent and had nothing to do with terrorism," Arif Hussain, an uncle of one of the six deceased, Umar Farooq, told Dawn by phone from his native town in Gujrat.

All the families live in nearby villages and have been in touch with each other since they heard the news, he said. Mr Husain said that legal action would be taken in coordination with a welfare trust, which helped the families pursue the case and bring the bodies back home. However, Umar's mother broke in tears and said she did not believe in compensation. Can it bring back my son, she asked and added she had died the day she heard about the death of her 22-year-old son.

However, Mr Husain said the families would definitely like to take legal action. And, he added, compensation in money or some government job for any of the family members of the victims would help them a lot. "We will accept whatever is suggested by our government or the welfare trust."

Azhar Javed, a Punjab spokesman for the trust, said his organization had prepared a legal notice to be sent to the Macedonian government. "We will sue the government for $12 million -- $2 million for each victim.

"The trust is also going to contact the International Court of Justice besides taking up this issue with the Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch."

The six innocent Pakistanis -- Umar Farooq, Syed Bilal Husain Shah, M Asif Javed, Khalid Iqbal, Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi and Muhammad Riaz -- were murdered in Skopje (Macedonia) in March 2002 on suspicion of links with Al Qaeda and Taliban just because they were carrying the Quran in their pockets, the spokesman said.

On March 5, 2002, he said, the Macedonian police took them outside the US embassy in capital Skopje and killed them in a staged encounter and told the world and media that they were terrorists trained in Pakistani camps and had plans to strike American and European interests.

"They (the victims) were just economic migrants passing through Macedonia illegally for some European country to earn livelihood for their poor families." The eldest son of his parents among six children, Umar, 22, was the sole bread-winner and the only hope for his parents as his father, a labourer, was no more able to run the family, his mother said.

She swore to Allah Almighty that her son had nothing to do with terrorism. "I borrowed money, sold out my jewellry and spent our life-time savings to collect the money required to send my son abroad."

She said the only sin her son had committed was that he had dreamt of marrying off her four sisters. "I could marry off only one of them after the death of my son. I don't know what will happen to the rest."

On Sept 9, 2002, victim's bodies were brought back to Pakistan by the welfare trust in coordination with Pakistan's foreign affairs ministry. For coordination in connection with the damages suit to be filed against the Macedonian government, the trust spokesman said the organization was also in contact with the Pakistan government.