Relatives in Pakistan defend their loved ones

Islamabad: Relatives of three Pakistanis detained for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing protested the men's innocence, saying their fervent religious beliefs do not mean they are extremists.

The family members demanded Sunday that the government either officially charge the men, who have been in custody for at least two weeks, or release them. Pakistan has a history of holding people for months, if not years, without charging them.

The trio are among at least six men who have been detained in Pakistan for alleged ties to Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American arrested in the United States two days after the failed May 1 attack in New York.

Like Shahzad, the detainees are all from their country's urban elite, including several who were educated in the United States.

However, their relatives expressed concern that the men were being mistakenly targeted because they are devout Muslims who pray five times a day and fast during the holy month of Ramadan — a contrast to some Pakistani elites who live a more Westernised lifestyle.

"Saying prayer is his crime, fasting is his crime, being Muslim is his crime," said Saima Shahid, whose 32-year-old husband Shahid Hussain is alleged to have helped arrange money for the Times Square suspect.

Both men studied at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, but Shahid did not know if they were at the school at the same time.

Hussain returned to Pakistan in 2004 and worked for the courier company DHL and the cell phone company Telenor, she said.

The uncle of another one of the suspects, Ahmad Raza, was equally adamant that his nephew's religious beliefs did not translate into extremism.

"He sports a beard. He is religious in the sense that he says his prayers and fasts," Afzal Inayat said about Raza.

"That doesn't mean that he is an extremist."

Raza, who has an MBA from a private university in Islamabad, worked at an upscale catering company co-owned by the third suspect, Salman Ashraf, whose family also spoke Sunday.

Pakistani intelligence has said that two of the suspects wanted Ashraf to help bomb a foreign party his company was catering.

However, Rana Ashraf Khan, Ashraf's father and co-owner of the catering company, said his son never displayed any signs of extremism. He was critical of US policies in the region, but that is quite common in Pakistan, he said.

Business-minded

"He is a normal, business-minded person," he said about Ashraf, who studied hotel management in Florida and computer science in Houston before he returned to Pakistan in 2001.

The other three suspects detained in Pakistan include a former army major and his brother and the owner of a computer dealership in Islamabad, Shoaib Mughal, who is alleged to be a go-between for Shahzad and the Taliban in their hide-outs close the Afghan border.

Shahzad is accused of leaving an SUV rigged with a homemade car bomb in Times Square on May 1 that failed to explode.