SA pair 'in good health'

2004-10-06 11:46

Johannesburg - South Africa has gained consular access for the first time to two citizens held in Pakistan because of alleged links to al-Qaeda, the department of foreign affairs said on Wednesday.

Access was granted on Monday said Ronnie Mamoepa, spokesperson for the department.

"Our diplomatic mission visited Feroze Ganchi and Zubair Ismail. We have certified that they are in good health, and we are satisfied with the conditions under which they are held," he told Sapa.

He said the department was informing the families of their findings.

Mamoepa said the visits conformed with requirements that the department visit South Africans detained in prisons abroad "irrespective of the crimes they have (allegedly) committed".

"We have discharged our constitutional obligation," he said.

He said the two men had not yet been charged with anything.

Ganchi, a doctor from Fordsburg, Johannesburg, and 20-year-old Ismail, a student from Laudium in Pretoria, have been held in Pakistan since July 25.

They were among about a dozen people detained after a 12-hour shootout with security forces at a house in Gujrat, southeast of Islamabad.

Mamoepa did not want to comment on the length of time it took to gain access to the two men.

A Pakistani diplomat, Javed Jalil Khattak, had earlier commented that suspected terrorists could not be dealt with like normal criminals.

"It is not an arrest of a person for a common crime," he had told journalists in Cape Town.

He said Pakistan had arrested about 600 people with alleged al-Qaeda connections.

Mamoepa said the department would continue to request permission for more consular visits, which Pakistan is obliged to grant under the Geneva Convention.

"We will continue to liaise with the Pakistani authorities with a view to ensuring a speedy resolution," he said.

- SAPA