Kidnapped boy and father reunited

**The UK boy kidnapped in Pakistan two weeks ago will be reunited imminently with his father in Islamabad.**Sahil Saeed’s father Raja has landed in the country and is due to fly back to the UK with his son almost immediately.

A ransom of £110,000 was paid to free the five-year-old from Oldham, who has been looked after by British officials since he was found unharmed on Tuesday.

Three people are due to appear in court in Spain in connection with the kidnap. Two others were arrested in Paris.

A phone call made from Spain had instructed the boy’s father to travel to Manchester and then Paris, where police saw him pay cash in a public street.

‘Gobsmacked’

Earlier, Pakistan’s interior minister said some money had been paid within Pakistan to get Sahil freed.

The boy was seized while visiting his family on 3 March and freed 13 days later.

Spanish police said the initial phone call gave the family three days to pay the ransom. Spanish authorities were alerted by Interpol after the call was traced to Spain.

They said police in Paris watched as people took the money handed over by Sahil’s 28-year-old father and divided it into a bag and trolley.

French police followed them to the border with Spain.

Spanish police officers in Tarragona, Catalonia, arrested two Pakistani men and a Romanian woman in connection with the case after raiding a flat in Constanti, 60 miles from Barcelona.

Money totalling £110,000, a computer and some mobile phones, which were used to contact Sahil’s father in Pakistan to demand the ransom, were found at the property.

Two of the group had driven to the French capital to collect the ransom payment and were arrested as they returned to Spain. All three are due to appear in court in Spain on Thursday.

Two people have also been arrested in Paris.

Sahil was taken when robbers broke into his grandmother’s house while he and his father were on holiday visiting relatives in Jhelum, in the Punjab region.

On 16 March Sahil was left near a school about 20km (12 miles) from Jhelum before wandering into a field where he was found by locals.