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Holland extradites Pakistani to Spain
Dutch authorities on Thursday extradited a Pakistani man to Spain suspected of belonging to a group planning suicide attacks in Barcelona and elsewhere in Europe, said the Spanish Interior Ministry. Aqueelur Rehman Abbasi, 26, fled Spain in January. Dutch police arrested him in June after a Madrid court issued a warrant for his capture. Spain's anti-terror court on June 5 charged Abbasi and 10 other South Asians, most of them Pakistanis, with belonging to a terrorist group. The other 10 had been arrested in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, in January in a series of raids during which police also recovered bomb-making equipment. Dutch judicial authorities approved his extradition last week, and he was transferred to Spain on Thursday, said Spain's Interior Ministry. The cell is suspected of planning suicide bombings in the Barcelona metro and other European cities. After the arrests, Spain's intelligence services had warned Paris, London and Lisbon of the threat of terrorist attacks linked to a European tour by President Pervez Musharraf. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in February that the cell was linked to Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud. Spanish authorities have stepped up operations against extremists since the March 11, 2004 Al Qaeda-inspired train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded 1,800 in the country's worst terror attack. Posted by: Fred 2008-08-15 |
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