ATHENS: Greek and British intelligence agents may be called to appear before a Greek court to answer a lawsuit alleging 28 Pakistanis were kidnapped and tortured in Greece after the July bombings in London.

Lawyer Frangiskos Ragoussis, representing the Pakistanis who claim they were illegally taken from their homes and interrogated by Greek and British agents for several days, said he had filed a suit against all agents alleged to have taken part in the operation.

Several intelligence officers, including a British agent, were named in a Greek newspaper article on Saturday as those responsible for the covert operation.

"I have sued everyone today named in that story as being part of the interrogation process and I have sued them for kidnapping and torture," Ragoussis said yesterday.

The Pakistanis have said they were kidnapped, hooded and taken to a secret location near Athens, where they were beaten and questioned for up to a week by Greek agents and at least two British officers.

The Greek public order minister and the secretive National Intelligence Agency (EYP) have denied the allegations but have been forced to recall two Greek agents operating in Kosovo who were named in the story.

The British Government has forbidden the British media to name their agent, whom the newspaper said was the Athens chief of Britain's intelligence service MI6.

EYP accused the newspaper of compromising security operations by naming the 15 Greek officers and said the allegations were "completely unfounded."

Ragoussis said he wants the agents to appear in court before his clients so they can identify them. "I want them to appear before a Greek court and to have them face my clients to identify them and I have also requested that the tapes of the interrogations be played before the courtroom."

The case, which first surfaced in August, weeks after the suicide attacks on London's trains and buses that killed 52, has become a thorn in the government's side with several opposition parties demanding the Public Order Minister appear in Parliament to answer questions from fellow deputies regarding the case.

Source: China Daily