Three Pakistanis on Gaza flotilla head home

ISLAMABAD - Three Pakistanis, including prominent TV anchor Talat Hussain, detained after Israeli commandos stormed a Gaza aid flotilla are set to return home, an official said.

“The three Pakistanis will fly to Islamabad from Amman,” Dawn quoted a spokesman for the interior ministry as saying.

On Tuesday, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Aaj TV’s Hussain, producer Raza Mehmood and Nadeem Khan of NGO Khubaib Foundation had reached Jordan safely after remaining in Israeli detention for almost 48 hours.

“The process of identification and confirmation of passports has been completed,” the minister told reporters here. He said they will return to Pakistan Wednesday.

The UN secretary general’s office also informed Pakistan’s mission in New York that the three men had been sent to Jordan for onward travel home.

Pakistan’s acting ambassador to the UN, Amjad Hussain Sial, had sought help from the secretary general’s chef de cabinet Vijay Nambiar for freeing the three from the Israelis.

The Pakistanis were on board a Gaza-bound relief ship which came under Israeli attack Monday. Ten foreign aid workers were killed in the assault, while some 700 people on board the six-ship flotilla were detained.

Palestinian ambassador to Pakistan Hazem Hussain Abu Shanab visited the National Press Club in Islamabad Tuesday to express solidarity with the three journalists.

“The Security Council should have taken more effective measures to stop the aggression of Israel and ensure complete independence and freedom of the state of Palestine,” the envoy said.