PALERMO, Sept 12: Italian police, working with US naval intelligence, claimed on Thursday they had arrested 15 Pakistanis alleged to be members of the Al Qaeda network.

The men were taken into custody last month after arriving in the southern Sicilian port of Gela on a merchant cargo ship from Morocco. They are charged with conspiracy to commit terror acts.

“We are certain that these people are part of a terrorist organization, and we are almost certain that that organization is Al Qaeda,” Santi Giuffre, chief of police for the Sicilian province of Caltanissetta, told a news conference. “We have found interesting documents that would prove the accusations.”

However, a Pakistan embassy official in Rome said there was no evidence the arrested men were Pakistanis and added that his embassy had been allowed no access to the suspects to find out.

“I think at this point it is false and misleading to say that they are from Pakistan. We told the Italian authorities three days ago that the suspects possessed false documents,” Qasim Muttaqi, the embassy’s counsellor for consular affairs, said.

Muttaqi said Italy’s interior ministry first contacted the Pakistan embassy about the men on Aug 20, asking the embassy to verify shipping documents they had in their possession.

On Sept 9, Muttaqi said, authorities in Pakistan confirmed the documents were false, information that was relayed to the Italian authorities.

“It’s surprising that the Italian police have made this announcement... For the last month all they have asked us to do is to verify the documents, we told them they were false, and now these men are apparently Pakistanis and terrorists.”

“It’s surprising that there has not been more cooperation because Pakistan is a frontline state in the fight against terrorism,” he added.

PHONE NUMBERS: Giuffre, the Italian police official said police had seized telephone numbers, including several in Spain and France, which linked the men to Al Qaeda.