GREECE: Justice Sought for Abducted Pakistanis

By Apostolis Fotiadis Reprint | | Print |

Apostolis Fotiadis

ATHENS, Oct 10 2007 (IPS) - On Sep. 16, when the latest election was being held, Tzaved Aslam’s younger brother was arrested in Pakistan for the second time in a year. Formally he is again accused of trafficking but the real reason, Aslam told IPS, “is another attempt to force me to pull out from the case of the Pakistanis kidnap that took place in Athens in July 2005.”

On Jul. 14 2005, a week after the Jul. 7, bombings on London underground trains and a bus, small groups of people appeared in front of the houses of Pakistani immigrants in Petralona and Oinofita in Athens, and in Ioannina city 447km northwest of the Greek capital.

They picked up some persons, presenting police IDs but no warrants, and led them away. The Pakistanis, 28 in total, remained in the hands of these people up to a week, while members of the community and their legal representative George Goudounas tried to locate them.

After release they said they had been interrogated by Greek policemen and other agents in connection with the bombings in London. They said British agents were present during their torture and interrogation.

On Jul. 21, a week after their release, Tzaved Aslam, a representative of the Pakistani community in Greece, officially estimated to be around 30,000 but unofficially 100,000, filed a complaint.

“The complaint was literally ‘stored’ for months,” Goudounas told IPS. “It was only in December (2005) after publications in the Greek press and when the BBC picked up the issue about possible British involvement that the case unfolded.”

On Dec. 25 the newspaper Proto Thema reported that one British and 15 Greek agents had participated in the kidnappings. Both the Greek and the British governments denied the report. But the British government recalled the named official and barred its national media from publishing his name.

Then minister for public order George Voulgarakis acknowledged that British authorities had asked Greece to investigate some calls made by people suspected of being al-Qaeda sympathisers.

About 5,000 economic migrants were questioned, but the 28 Pakistanis were not among them.

The official government line was that “kidnappings are common practice among Pakistanis to resolve internal community affairs.” The same explanation was offered by Voulgarakis’s successor Vyronas Polydoras after Voulgarakis was transferred to the ministry of culture.

The new minister stuck to this line even after prosecutor Nikolaos Degaitis concluded in a preliminary investigation in May 2006 that the kidnapping did take place, and ordered “the initiation of a criminal indictment against anyone responsible.” Degaitis stated clearly that state authorities had been involved, and should be investigated further. An inquiry began.

Meanwhile, pressure mounted on the Pakistani community to back down. “People from the Pakistani embassy approached the victims and offered them money and residence permits in order to withdraw their accusation,” Tzavet Aslam said. “Whoever accepted was asked to swear on the Quran. This is the reason the victims from Ioannina, by far more defenceless, dropped their cases.” The Pakistani community publicly denounced the pressure on the victims. On Jun. 20 (2006), some days after Aslam went to testify, his brother was arrested in Pakistan for the first time, and kept in prison 78 days. Aslam says “the two events were absolutely connected.”

“When this did not work the government of Pakistan asked for my extradition for trafficking. I was arrested on Nov. 6 and kept 18 days in prison.” The case collapsed in the court as unfounded. But the Greek embassy in Islamabad has refused visas to his wife and daughter even though Aslam had completed a family reunification procedure in 2004.

The Pakistani community complains that the embassy of Pakistan has blacklisted 200 members of the community as a threat to Pakistan. Some fear they may lose their residence permits in Greece as a consequence.

The inquiry was closed earlier this summer (2007) for lack of evidence. “Proceedings were inadequate, they just rushed to close the issue before the national election,” said Goudounas. “Neither the suspected secret agents nor the issue of British involvement were examined.”

But the Magistrates Council of Athens has ordered further investigation. The case has been reopened, and the Pakistani community intends to pursue it. “We want those responsible to appear in court,” Aslam said.