Greek opposition calls for minister's resignation

Photo: Greek opposition calls for minister's resignation

Greek opposition calls for minister's resignation

A human rights group also called for the prime minister's resignation over the allegations.

The governments of Greece, Pakistan and Britain have denied accusations that they were involved in the alleged detention of 28 Pakistanis for several days in Athens and in the northwestern Greek city of Ioannina after last year's July 7 London bombings.

The migrants claim they were interrogated by Greek and British agents over their links with Pakistanis in Britain.

Prosecutor Nikos Degaitis filed abduction charges against "unknown persons" after establishing that the abductions took place, but not who carried them out. Officials said he had not established any involvement by foreign services, while two Greek intelligence agents were being treated as suspects.

It is now up to an examining judge to indict specific people or file the case - effectively ending the prosecution.

Socialist Party spokesman Nikos Athanassakis called for the resignation of Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis, who held the public order portfolio last year.

Greece's Pakistani community voiced satisfaction with the prosecutor's findings, but the alleged abduction victims said they feared deportation after going public with their claims.

He insisted that at least one non-Greek appeared to have attended the interrogations.

Frangiskos Ragoussis, a lawyer representing the Pakistanis, said Thursday he would pursue the alleged British agents through British courts and the European Parliament.

Another Pakistani, Khalid Irfan, on Friday accused officials from Pakistan's embassy in Athens of trying to bribe and intimidate the migrants into retracting their official complaints.

"The Pakistani Embassy played a strange role," he said, speaking in Urdu through a Greek translator. "They offered us money to change our testimony and threatened us."

No Pakistani Embassy official was immediately available for comment, the AP reports.