British boy’s kidnapper given 60-year sentence

Sahil Saeed Naqqash, from Oldham, was kidnapped from his grandparents’ house in central Pakistan in March 2010.

The robbers had held the family at gunpoint and demanded a £100,000 ransom. He was released unharmed after two weeks.

An official in Rawalpindi said the kidnapper, Imran Husain, was sentenced on Thursday.

The court also ordered that all his belongings and property be seized.

Sahil’s father, Raja Saeed, 28, handed over a sum of money in Paris following a series of phone calls to end his son’s 13 day ordeal.

The boy was later found wandering shoeless and with his head shaved in a village called Dinga, Punjab.

Sahil had travelled to Pakistan with his father to visit family in the town of Jhelum in Punjab.

They were preparing to fly back to Britain on March 3 when gunmen struck at his grandmother’s house.

Mr Saeed said he and other family members were beaten and tortured for six hours by a gang armed with guns and grenades.

The raiders took jewellery and money and fled with the boy before demanding £100,000 in a telephone call.

Relatives and friends rallied round donating savings, selling family heirlooms and expensive jewellery to raise the money for the boy’s release.

The kidnap sparked an international police investigation, which led them to a flat in the Spanish city of Tarronga, 60 miles from Barcelona, where three people were arrested.

Speaking when Sahil was found, his mother Akila Naqqash, 31, said her sister-in-law burst into her bedroom at 4.20am to break the news.

“I thought it was a dream. I couldn’t believe it,” she said.