Pakistanis target ‘secret agents’
The possibility of secret service agents being called to testify as part of an investigation into claims they abducted and interrogated Pakistani immigrants grew yesterday after the migrants’ lawyer said he had filed charges against the intelligence officers named by a newspaper. Frangiskos Ragousis, the lawyer representing 28 Pakistanis who claim to have been kidnapped and questioned in Greece, said he had filed a suit against the Greek agents and one British officer named in an article published by the Proto Thema newspaper on Saturday. Ragousis said that he has accused the agents of abduction and torture. Initially it had been claimed that the migrants were not harmed by their captors. Supreme Court prosecutor Dimitris Linos met with Athens Court of First Instance prosecutor Dimitris Papangelopoulos to discuss the investigation into the allegations. «This case is very serious and demands that it be handled seriously,» said Linos. «The first thing that needs to be established is whether the events being alleged actually happened.» To do this, prosecutors may need to question agents from the National Intelligence Agency (EYP). Because of national security restrictions, the Public Order Ministry could be called upon to give the officers clearance to speak to investigators. Ragousis said that he wants the British agent to be questioned in Greece in front of his clients and that any recordings of the alleged interrogations be turned over to prosecutors. The government again refrained from commenting on the allegations as it attempts to avoid any lasting damage from the allegations. «There is an investigation going on. Let us wait for the results,» said Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis.
