Students tell of humiliation by British police

Students tell of humiliation by British police
Pakistani students detained in a well-publicized April terror crackdown in northwest England say they were imprisoned with criminals charged with murder.

Tariq Rehman, apparently the first to be sent home, told reporters in brief comments at the Islamabad airport that he had suffered "mental torture" and humiliation in a British prison.

He added that his fellow detainees, who were also accused of extremism, were also treated like hardened criminals in British detention.

"Even our Korans and prayer mats were searched using dogs and we repeatedly protested at this."

"I have been arrested just because I am a Muslim and I belong to Pakistan," a visibly distressed and disappointed Tariq said.

Tariq's counsel, Amjad Malik, told the media that Pakistani authorities had cleared his client of all charges.

According to Malik, the Pakistani students were suspected of involvement in extremist activities, which he said could not be defined as "fasting, going to prayers, keeping a beard, anything, could be (termed) Islamist extremism. So we don't know really."

Twelve Pakistanis students in Britain were arrested in dramatic daytime operations across England in early April.

British Premier Gordon Brown said at the time of the arrests that the police had uncovered "a very big terrorist plot".

The arrests, however, strained relations between London and Islamabad, especially after the British police failed to produce hard evidence to back up their terror charges.

After the charges were dropped for lack of evidence, Tariq and the other students were kept in detention on the grounds that they constituted a national threat.

British authorities insisted on deporting the Pakistani students despite the charges having been dropped against them.

Three US soldiers killed in Afghanistan

Three US soldiers are killed in an ambush in Afghanistan's Kapisa province north of Kabul, taking number of the coalition forces killed in 2009 to 126.

"Three coalition service members were killed in an attack on their convoy in Kapisa province this morning when their convoy struck an improvised explosive device and came under small-arms fire," the US military said on Thursday.

The force's media office told AFP that the three were from the United States.

No militant group has as yet claimed responsibility for the attack in area where extremist Hezb-e-Islami faction led by former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are active.

A separate bombing in the southern province of Kandahar on Wednesday evening killed five Afghan security forces, Press TV correspondent reported.

The explosion hit a police patrol in the city of Spin Buldak, near the Durand Line border with Pakistan, when a Taliban militant rammed his explosive-laden motorcycle into the vehicle.

Taliban-linked insurgency has risen in Afghanistan, particularly in the violent south where hundreds of NATO soldiers are stationed.

Recent attacks have raised stability concerns as the nation heads for key presidential and provincial elections scheduled for August 20, the second since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

President Hamid Karzai came out as the winner in the previous lection in 2004 and is to step down when his five-year term ends in October 2009.