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Swedish officials meet suspects in Pakistan terror probe

Published: 23 Sep 09 16:21 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/22252/20090923/

Swedish embassy officials have now met with the four Swedish terror suspects currently imprisoned in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Utrikesdepartementet) said on Wednesday.

Given their present circumstances, the group is said to be doing well.

The four Swedes – Mehdi Ghezali,a former inmate of Guantánamo Bay, 28-year-old Munir Awad, his 19-year-old girlfriend Safia Benaouda, and their two and half-year-old boy – were arrested on August 28th.

According to the foreign ministry spokesperson Karin Nylund, the meetings were conducted collectively and individually. The consulate will now continue its assignment in accordance with established protocol, however, Nylund was unable to provide concrete details about what will happen next.

“We will remain in contact with the detainees to the extent that they want and try to help if needed,” she said.

The Swedish prisoners were part of a group of foreigners thought by Pakistani police to be travelling in the company of a terror suspect.

The man's alleged mission was to bring the foreigners to the lawless region of northern Waziristan to meet an Zahir Noor, an individual suspected of being a Taliban leader.

The group was arrested on the border of the North-western province, a region heavily targeted in the ongoing civil war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The group was arrested in a forbidden zone containing nuclear facilities, and is suspected of collaborating with terrorists.

The prisoners insist that they were on their way to a harmless religious gathering.

TT/Charlotte Webb (news@thelocal.se)

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21:37 September 23, 2009 by peropaco
I know the Sweden administration is filled up with dumb asz but I hope they would not stick out their neck "again" for these terrorist. They should torture them till no end.
22:46 September 23, 2009 by Fonzerella
Errrr sorry, I was on holiday, errr studying, eerrrrr visiting friends again....honest!

Can you imagine how this sounds?

Are politicians and so called human rights preachers really as stupid as they sound?
11:41 September 24, 2009 by Nemesis
As someone who has worked in the area of human rights, I can easily spot someone who is playing games. Any human rights activist who is backing people like this is do so as to make political points at the expense of the rest of the population. I have seen that happen time after time. Actions like that are what gives a lot of good human rights activits a bad name.

This chancer has thrown his chances away.

Let him take his chances with the Pakistani's and Americans. We don't need anymore terrorists in Sweden or Europe. Anyone connected with terrorism should be deported from Sweden and Europe.

Those immigrants who oppose the huamn rights of the majority of law abiding citizens who are just trying to live there lives in Europe, without bothering anyone.

Any potential immigrant coming to Europe should be made to swear an oath at the border of Europe.

They should be made to swear to uphold all human rights laws in Europe, covering Democracy, The right for all to Vote, Freedom of Speech, Womens Rights, Childrens Rights, Freedom of Worship, Homosexual rights, Disability rights, Intersex Rights, Right to a fair unbiased trial, Transsexual rights, Right of Children and Adults not to trafficked, The right not to be Exploited and to recognise the Holocaust as fact.

I am sure others can think of human rights issues to add to that oath.

Anyone entering Europe who breaks there oath, should be deported immediately. Europe is not perfect, but it is better than most other places. We don´t need people who will drag us into the dark ages. We need people who are progressive and who will ehlp us build a better future.
12:00 September 24, 2009 by mysticbumwipe
Nemesis, the world is not so big anymore that we can live our comfortable lifestyles AND THINK THAT we are NOT affecting other people at the receiving end of our consumption of 75% of the world's resouces or our country's foreign policies and those of its allies.

We live in an age when the connection between how comfortably and securely and luxuriously we live is increasingly connected to the living conditions of everybody else on the planet.

The type of food we choose to eat and the degree of luxury we choose to claim for ourselves directly affect the living conditions of the people who live at the source of the raw ingredients for our consumption.

Of course it is not possible to fully know the ramifications and results of all our lifestyle choices. But is our ignorance

of those connections and consequences justifiable?

We live in what is being called the Information Age.

To what degree are WE as individuals morally responsible

for our ignorance and any consequences of that ignorance?

From a moral and spiritual perspective are we in any way obligated to understand how the things we believe and say and do affect others?

I think the answer is yes.

Are we responsible for the consequences of our 'ignorance'

if that lack of awareness causes suffering to others?

Again I believe that we are.
12:18 September 24, 2009 by here for the summer
@mystic .. i agree with many of your points but what does this have to do with the insane pandering to terrorists by the Swedish government as shown here. Google the names Munir Awad, Zahir Noor look at the articles. These guys are terrorists using Sweden as a safe base to work with terrorist groups world wide. At some point this could be construed as Swedish government support of terrorist attacks on other countries.

Plus Sweden is wasting millions of your tax dollars bailing them out and flying them home. Not once but now the 3rd time and the 3rd country.
12:32 September 24, 2009 by Nemesis
@mysticbumwipe.

No matter how much people consume, they do not have the right to import prejudice to Europe. That is a bottom line. They consume as much as, if not more than people in Europe when they get here.

Consuption is nothing to do with this. So please stop exusing criminal behaviour with unconnected arguements.

Most of there countries have been self determining for six to ten decades, which is more than long enough to build a strong country or turn it into a banana republic on there own. It is time we in the west stop being blamed for the state those countries are in. They have been independant long enough to have found there own way. To many excuses have been accepted here in the west for failed states outside Europe.

In Europe, 300 years ago, European countries including Sweden, were a lot more backward than most in the present third world. European countries have built themselves up, without a begging bowl.

It is time third world countries stopped sitting with a begging bowl and stood on there own two feet.

We are all responsible for our own actions, including immigrants. They are not more equal than anyone else. We do not live in animal farm.

These immigrants have to realise that they are responsible for there own actions. If they break the law, they should not be able to claim any excuses.

They have broken the law and need to learn to accept responsibility for what they have done.
12:51 September 24, 2009 by HejHej
@Nemesis#3... Some Oath for own ppl also.... European counries will not indulge in any kind of militry exports to any other country , but rather try to fight against poverty and illiteracy. If the money being spent in Afgahnistan for the all militry expenditures, is diverted towards education and other social activities, all of problems would be over, but you know OIL of central asian countries are big question mark? So lets not live in fool's paradise.
13:57 September 24, 2009 by here for the summer
@hejhej

How do you support literacy when the government former Taiban bans the education of women ?

How do you not invade a country that trains people who bomb your planes ?
22:07 November 13, 2009 by drgony1
yes hej hej i am agree with u the situation is not as bad as projecting in front of whole world, the key thing is OIL of central asia and i think now everyone should better understand the hidden objective and situation created war against terrorism for what just for oil and its projecting infront of whole world for the justification of his action that if they are not stopped they will kill us. In my idea all the issue would resolve if they spend money to literate the people inspite of bombed them.
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