Illegal immigrant involved in kidnapping

Thisislondon:

An illegal immigrant today denied kidnapping an 11-year-old boy and holding him hostage for a ransom of £40,000.

Radideed Babu 23, is alleged to have kept the terrified youngster in a squalid room for more than 24 hours while his parents received chilling phone calls threatening their son with death.

The Asian child was on his way home from school on March 17 last year when Babu allegedly bundled him into a car and took him to a dingy safe house in Southall, Middlesex. where he was forced to go to the toilet on the floor before being freed in an armed police raid.

But giving evidence through a Punjabi interpreter at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court in London today Babu maintained he had not forcibly kept or harmed the child, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Babu claimed he was owed money by a relative of the child and said he had been told that in Pakistan it was "normal practice" to take a member of someone's family to ensure payment for the debt.

He said he needed the money because his mother was seriously ill with cancer in India.

Unbelievable!