News

Three people were due to appear in a Spanish court on Thursday on charges relating to the kidnapping of a five-year-old British boy in Pakistan almost two weeks ago.

The court appearance comes a day after police across Europe arrested five people and recovered more than 150-thousand US dollars in ransom money.

Three people were arrested in the town of Constanti, in Spain''s Catalonia region, two of whom allegedly collected the ransom in Paris, national police said in a statement.

The other two arrests were made in Paris and police said they were relatives of the suspects in Spain.

The child, Sahil Saeed, was released on Tuesday, almost two weeks after being abducted from his grandparents'' house in central Pakistan.

A senior Pakistani provincial official said a ransom had been paid for the release of the boy, who is of Pakistani origin and lived in the Manchester area of England.

Spanish authorities were alerted to the kidnapping by Interpol and later determined that the first call demanding a ransom payment had been made from Spain.

The child''s father travelled to Manchester, as instructed by the kidnappers, to pay the ransom.

From there, he was told to go to Paris instead, where the payment was finally made.

Police were watching when the money changed on a street in broad daylight and started monitoring the suspects, while awaiting word of the child''s release, which came on Tuesday.

Two of those who had collected the money were arrested upon their return to Spain, along with a third person in Catalonia.

French police arrested the two others in Paris.

Police didn''t give their nationalities, but El Pais newspaper said the suspects in Spain were two Pakistani men and a woman from Romania.

The three were to go before a judge on Thursday, the Superior Court of Catalonia said.