UK accused of 'prisoner swap' with Pakistan

By Isambard Wilkinson, Pakistan Correspondent

Britain has been accused of taking the first step towards a "prisoner swap" by arresting two nationalist separatists after coming under intense pressure from Pakistan.

The Metropolitan Police said two men, aged 25 and 39, were held under the Terrorism Act following raids in London on Tuesday morning.

The men were named as Faiz Mohammed Baluch and Nawabzada Hyrbiyar Marri, according to Lakhumal Luhana, a Baloch human rights campaigner living in London.

Britain has been engaged in secret negotiations with Pakistan to hand over a terrorist suspect who is wanted for questioning over the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airlines last summer.

Britain had demanded the return of Rashid Rauf, 26, who was arrested in Pakistan.

The arrests come less than one month after Pakistan began proceedings for the extradition to Britain of Rauf.

His extradition is expected in the next few weeks.

In return Pakistan demanded the extradition of up to eight people living in the UK who they claim are involved in a low-intensity insurgency in the western oil-rich province of Balochistan.

Several months ago a Pakistani foreign official had named both arrested men to The Daily Telegraph as they were on a wish-list of people which Pakistan wanted Britain to arrest.

The official demanded that Britain show some "reciprocity".

British officials have become intensely frustrated over Pakistan’s insistence on arresting Baloch nationalists.

Pakistan has held back intelligence vital to Britain’s counter-terrorism effort and co-operation with the campaign in neighbouring Afghanistan on the grounds that Britain must arrest Baloch suspected of being involved in the insurgency.

The two men were detained on suspicion of the "commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism," according to a police spokesman.

"The arrests were made under the Terrorism Act 2000 and strictly in accordance with UK law," he added.

Mr Luhana said: "This is a prisoner swap. We have asked the British not to succumb to pressure and to support the Baloch, a secular force in Pakistan."

Asthma Jehangir, a prominent Pakistani human rights campaigner, said: "I hope that this has been done according to the law and not at the behest of Pakistan".

British officials in Islamabad admitted that Pakistani demands to extradite Baloch nationalists who Pakistan claims are suspected members of the Baluchistan Liberation Army.

In what one senior Western diplomat in Islamabad described as an act of "realpolitik" the organisation was added to the British government’s proscribed list of terrorist organisations in July 2006.

The British government denied the arrests were in any way connected to a reciprocal deal with Pakistan.

"There is an extradition request [for the two arrested men] but it is coincidental. This has nothing to do with Pakistan," said a spokesman for the High Commission in Islamabad.