SKOPJE, June 25: A lawyer for the families of six Pakistani migrants killed by Macedonian police in a staged encounter against "terrorists" is threatening to sue the Macedonian government for up to $60 million.

Macedonia in April charged former Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski and six former members of security forces with murdering six Pakistani and an Indian migrants in March 2002.

The government, which took power later that year, accused them of smuggling these men into Macedonia from Bulgaria, murdering them and making them look like Muslim militants intent on attacking Western embassies.

The aim was to ingratiate Macedonia with the West by showing it was doing its bit in the US-led war on terror.

Ansar Burney, a Karachi-based human rights lawyer representing the victims' families, said he would increase his original claim of $2 million for each of the victim after speaking with Macedonian officials during a four-day visit.

"I will go and discuss it with the families, but it must be high," he told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday. "It could be $10 million each."

The killings occurred six months after the Sept 11 terrorsit attacks on the United States, at a time when Macedonia was recovering from a five-month ethnic conflict between government security forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

The West chose to tread softly with Skopje at the time but some diplomats quietly questioned the circumstances.-Reuters