British boy freed in Pakistan after ransom payment (3rd Roundup)

Mar 16, 2010, 16:04 GMT

Islamabad/London - A 5-year-old British boy kidnapped two weeks ago in Pakistan was released Tuesday after a ransom was paid to his abductors, Pakistani officials said.

The ransom was paid in a European country for the release of Sahil Saeed, abducted in a March 3 robbery in Jehlum in the eastern province of Punjab, said Rana Sanaullah, law minister for the regional administration of Punjab.

However, he did not give the amount of the ransom or who paid the money.

Family members in Britain said however that they did not 'know anything' about a ransom.

'This is fantastic news,' British High Commission spokesman Adam Smith said. 'It brings to an end the traumatic ordeal faced by Sahil and his family.'

The kidnappers had demanded 100,000 pounds (around 150,000 dollars) for the release of Saeed, who is from Oldham in Greater Manchester, and was on holidays and visiting his grandmother in Jehlum when he was captured.

The kidnappers left the boy near a school Tuesday morning in Dinga village, about 20 kilometres south of Jehlum.

In Oldham, his mother Akila Naqqash, said she was 'over the moon' about the news and grateful that her prayers had been heard. 'Mosques, churches, all religions have been praying for him,' she said.

Shaukat, a resident in Dinga, who was identified with only the one name, told ARY television that he found the 'boy standing along the road and weeping.'

He handed over the child to policemen and intelligence agents who had come looking for the boy in the area after a phone call from the abductors.

Sanaullah said three people who had held the British boy had been arrested. 'But those people who masterminded the kidnapping, facilitated it and received the ransom have yet to be traced,' he said.

The British High Commission in Pakistan welcomed the boy's freedom.

'I know that his family must be overjoyed following almost two weeks of terrible anxiety and uncertainty, High Commissioner Adam Thomson said in a statement.

'The top priority for the High Commission now is to ensure he is reunited with his parents as soon as possible,' Thomson said.

Sanaullah said an international gang was involved in the abduction and Pakistani authorities were trying to trace it down with the assistance of law enforcement agencies from Britain and other countries.

'First, they [the abductors] asked the family to pay the ransom in one foreign country and then in another,' the minister said.

The father handed over the money to the captors two days ago, Sanaullah said.

'I am not in a position to disclose the source of the payment,' he said. 'It is possible that the British government may have contributed to the payment.'

George Scheriff, the spokesman for the British High Commission in Islamabad, said his government had not contributed to the ransom payment.

'The UK government position is clear that we do not make nor facilitate substantive concessions to hostage takers,' he said.

The confirmation of the release from the British High Commission came five days after Sanaullah told reporters that Saeed had been recovered, a statement he later retracted.

'In fact, we had traced the location where the boy was being held by then, and an order had been given to the police to recover the boy, but the operation was postponed for the safe recovery of the boy,' Sanaullah said Tuesday.

Kidnapping is a major problem in Pakistan. Last year, 480 people were abducted for ransom, according to official data. But the numbers could be much higher because most of the cases go unreported.

Criminal gangs are involved in kidnappings as are Taliban militants, who use ransoms to fund their jihad.