Posted on 02/13/2003 2:13:08 PM PST by vannrox
Italian judge frees Pakistanis held in terrorism raid
Sophie Arie in Rome
Thursday February 13, 2003
The Guardian
An Italian judge ordered the release of 28 Pakistani men yesterday after they spent two weeks in a Naples prison, admitting there was not enough evidence that any of them were involved in an al-Qaida plot.
Police in Naples had claimed to have broken up a cell linked to al-Qaida and foiled a plot to attack Britain's chief of defence staff, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, after they found explosives, detonator wires and marked maps in the flat in central Naples where the men were staying.
Pakistan made an official complaint to Italy's ambassador in Islamabad soon after the men were arrested last month. Relatives of the prisoners protested that most of them were street vendors with legal work permits or applying for permit renewals. Officials from the Pakistani embassy were not given access to the prisoners for a week.
Judge Ettore Favara ordered the release concluding there was "reason to believe the men were unaware that explosives were hidden", in the apartment they had been renting.
He also concluded that real terrorists would not have remained in the apartment with the incriminating materials after the police made a preliminary visit two days before the arrests.
"This is a very positive development," said an official at the Pakistani embassy in Rome.
"We've always said that they were innocent and that they were just economic migrants trying to eke out a living, not terrorists."
Italian media hailed the arrests as the biggest al-Qaida bust in Italy since September 11 and police said they had found a circled photo of Admiral Boyce in a newspaper in the flat. But investigators admitted in subsequent days that it would be hard to prove the link between the evidence and the explosives found and the 28 men.
The men had all been living crammed into one large flat which relatives said they were renting from the local mafia, the Camorra. Early on in the investigation police had ruled out the possibility that the explosives belonged to the Camorra.
The high-profile Naples arrest came as Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was in Washington to express his country's support for a US-led war to disarm Iraq.
A week before, five Moroccans were arrested in a run-down farmhouse in Rovigo, near Venice, in possession of explosives and maps with "sensitive targets" such as nearby Nato and US military bases and churches marked.
More than 100 suspected terrorists have been arrested in Italy since September 11 and the US has identified Italy as being on the "front line" for future terrorist attacks. Less than 20 have been convicted and the others released.
Isn't it still common in San Francisco?
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