Spanish police make arrests in Pakistan kidnapping case

Spanish police have made an unspecified number of arrests linked to the kidnapping in Pakistan of a five-year-old British boy Sahil Saeed, a spokesman said today.

"Arrests have been made. I can not say how many. Details will be given at a press conference at 6:30 pm (1730 GMT)," the spokesman told AFP when asked about a newspaper report
that three people had been arrested.

Two Pakistani men and a Romanian woman were detained at their home in the town of Constanti near Tarragona in
northeastern Spain in connection with the case, the online
edition of regional daily Diari de Tarragona reported.

They are suspected of having travelled to an undisclosed European city to pick up the ransom, the newspaper said.

Spanish police found a large quantity of money at the suspects' flat, it added.

Police in Pakistan said the kidnappers had dropped off the child in a field yesterday, allowing officers to recover him, but no arrests were made.

Saeed was taken from his grandmother's house in the town of Jhelum, about 100 kilometres south of Islamabad, in the early hours of March 4 while preparing to leave with his Pakistani father to fly back to Britain.