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| India-Pakistan | |
| Briton held in Pakistan since May deported | |
| 2006-01-10 | |
| ISLAMABAD - Pakistani authorities have deported a Briton held since May after he was cleared of links to terrorism and charges of fraud, fining him 500 rupees ($8.30) for overstaying his visa, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Zeeshan Siddiqui, a 25-year-old Briton of Pakistani descent, was arrested in the northwestern town of Peshawar on May 15 after going to the police to report the loss of his passport. According to his lawyer, Siddiqui was interrogated about links to al Qaeda and so badly beaten in custody that he lost the sight of one eye and the partial sight of the other. The lawyer, Musarrat Hilali, said that after police failed to link Siddiqui to militants, they charged him with having a false identity card but a court found him not guilty. He was, however, fined 500 rupees ($8.30) for overstaying his visa and ordered deported on those grounds. âWe got his deportation order from the court on Saturday and he was freed from jail on Sunday,â Hilali said from Peshawar. âHe left for London via Qatar the same night,â she said. In October, Siddiqui wrote to Britainâs Daily Telegraph newspaper rejecting reports that he had met senior al Qaeda figures and Shehzad Tanweer, one of four bombers who died on July 7 killing 52 people in attacks on the London transport system. Hilali said last month that during his detention, Siddiqui was questioned by agents from MI6, the British intelligence agency, but had not been mistreated by them. Some Pakistani media reports linked Siddiqui to the July 7 bombings but Hilali rejected the reports, saying he was in custody at the time. According to Hilali, Siddiqui apparently fell under suspicion initially because he had been in Peshawar with a group of Islamic preachers who travel from town to town teaching Islam.
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| Posted by:Steve |