British boy kidnapped in Pakistan returns to UK after 2-week ordeal

British boy kidnapped in Pakistan returns to UK

LONDON — A 5-year-old British boy who was kidnapped and held in Pakistan for two weeks arrived safely back in Britain on Thursday.

Sahil Saeed, who is of Pakistani origin, was snatched March 4 from his grandparents’ house in central Pakistan, where he was vacationing. He was released unharmed Tuesday, and on Thursday he flew back to Manchester, northern England, where he lives with his parents.

“Sahil is doing well, is in good spirits,” the boy’s father, Raja Naqqash Saeeda, said earlier in Islamabad after he was reunited with his son.

The case has drawn in investigators from four countries — Britain, France, Spain and Pakistan. The first calls for ransom were made from Spain, authorities say, and the boy’s family was instructed to travel to Paris to deliver the payment.

In Spain, the Catalonia Superior Court said preliminary charges of kidnapping a minor were filed against three people at a hearing Thursday. The names of the accused were not released.

Spanish police said Wednesday they had arrested two Pakistani men and a Romanian woman in the town of Constanti, in Spain’s Catalonia region, as soon as police got word that the boy was released. Authorities said they confiscated 100,000 pounds ($152,000) that the boy’s family had paid to the kidnappers.

The court said it would decide in the next few days whether the case should remain in Spain or be transferred to another country.

French national police said the ransom had been demanded from Sahil’s family. The kidnappers spoke in Urdu, the language of Pakistan, and called from phone booths in Spain’s Tarragona province.

Slightly less than the full ransom was recovered in Spain.

French police said they started trailing the two suspected ransom-collectors in Paris, and monitored them as they collected money from the kidnapped boy’s uncle at a McDonald’s restaurant on the landmark Place de la Republique.

The suspects then went to visit their relatives in Bobigny, France, before driving south to Spain, the official said. French police trailed the two to the border then alerted Spanish colleagues, the official said.

On Tuesday police in France had arrested two suspects — a father and son — but released them Wednesday after finding no link to the kidnapping.

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Associated Press Writers Angela Charlton in Paris and Jorge Sainz in Madrid contributed to this report.