Gang made threat to kill Sahil

Sahil Saeed with his father, Raja Naqqash Saeed

A MARRIED couple plotted the gunpoint kidnapping of five–year–old Shaw schoolboy Sahil Saeed in Pakistan from a Mediterranean seaside town, a court heard.

Muhammad Zahid Saleem, the alleged mastermind behind the kidnapping, and his wife, Gianina Monica Neruja, went on trial with flatmate Muhammad Sageiz at the provincial court in Tarragona.

The two Pakistani men and Neruja, from Romania, who lived in Tarragona before their arrest, deny charges of kidnap of a minor, conspiracy, robbery in conjunction with a crime of trespassing and eight charges of unlawful arrest.

The Oldham youngster was snatched by an armed gang in Jhelum, Punjab province, on March 3, 2010. After a ransom of £110,000 was collected by Saleem and Neruja in Paris, the boy was released

Prosecuting, Maria Jose Osuna said: “The whole operation was directed by the defendant Muhammad Zahid Saleem, who had gone to his country at the end of 2009 and in February for that purpose.”

The court heard the kidnappers struck as Sahil and his father Raja Saeed were saying farewell to their family before returning home. Four masked men carrying assault rifles and hand grenades gagged and beat Sahil’s family.

Ms Osuna said: “At one point they turned to Mr Raja Saeed and said, ‘You are going to pay us £100,000, we are taking your son with us now’. They told him, ‘If you try to contact the police or involve them we will kill him .”

The assailants made off with Sahil in the taxi and several days of frantic phone exchanges, instructions and threats followed.

(Proceeding)

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