GUJRANWALA: As the trial of 10 Pakistanis in a Spanish prison in a terrorism case has hit the headlines, one of the convicts claims he is innocent.
Muhammad Shoaib, son of Meer Akbar (of Gujranwala’s Mohalla Bakhtaywala), reached Barcelona on Nov 12, 2007, where he was arrested on Jan 18, 2008, on the charge of being a member of a terrorist organisation that was planning an explosion at a Barcelona subway.
This correspondent on Friday got an opportunity to talk to Shoaib who contacted his family from a Spanish jail.
He told Dawn that on his arrival at Barcelona, his maternal uncle (also father-in-law) made him reside with Khwaja Irfan of Gujranwala because he was going back to Pakistan.
He said he got admission to a language school (RIMLA) to learn Spanish and got introduced to another Pakistani, Khalid Mahmood, on Jan 10.
Khalid also was trying to get admission to the institute, but could not get his name enrolled because the seats were already filled.
Khalid was living in the room of Tableeghi (preachers) as sub-tenant, but had nothing to do with their activities, he said. The preachers, he said, kept moving from mosque to mosque to carry out their mission.
“Khalid asked me to help him learn Spanish until he got admission to the language school,” Shoaib said.
He said two days before their (including him) arrest, the preachers had also allowed another person, Asim Iqbal (whom the Spanish police called F-1 and used as a witness in this case) to join them on the condition of paying 100 Euro a month to the group.
Khalid Mahmood had brought a bagful of gold ornaments (of his wife who had gone to Pakistan); this was Asim Iqbal’s version.
Shoaib said on Jan 18 he and Khalid went to a nightclub and as they got late, Khalid asked him to stay with him for a night to which he agreed.
He was taking tea at his guest’s place, he said, when the police arrested them. He said the police impounded two battery cells used in toys from that room, but later showed in record recovery of six big batteries.
He said he neither had any contact with any terrorist organisation nor had he undergone militant training anywhere. He also denied having visited Afghanistan.
According to Shoaib, he is taken out in the city of Barcelona for two days every week and on depositing 100 Euro a month, he can make calls to his family members in Pakistan.
Col Muhammad Siddique (retired), the uncle of Shoaib, told Dawn that he, along with the wives of four convicts, met Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi who assured them of helping the Pakistanis in distress, but the government had yet to do anything practical in this regard.
He said he also contacted Javed Ahmad Umrani, the first secretary to Pakistan’s ambassador in Spain, who pledged to come to the rescue of Pakistanis, but he too remained aloof thereafter.
Meer Akbar and Azra Parveen, the parents of Shoaib, said their son went to Spain to explore job opportunities but ended up being trapped for being a Pakistani. They said no one in their family had any link with any religious organisation.
They have appealed to the Pakistan government to intervene in the case timely and save many a family from distress.
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