Family shock as Faisal Mostafa, head of Green Crescent charity, held after police raid on orphanage.
The father of a British chemist arrested in Bangladesh on terror charges after a raid on an orphanage has protested his son's innocence.
Faisal Mostafa, 45, from Heaton Mersey, near Stockport, Greater Manchester was arrested after a police raid on the remote southern island of Bhola on Monday.
It has since emerged that Mostafa, who is married with three children, was given a two-year suspended sentence for trying to board an Emirates plane at Manchester airport last November with a pistol in his suitcase.
In 2002, he was cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions, a surveillance operation in Birmingham in 2000. He was cleared of another terrorist offence – conspiracy to carry out explosions – in 1996.
But Mostafa's father Ghulam, 73, a retired accountant, said he was innocent.
"He runs a small orphanage for children aged eight to 11 and a medical centre and he is not a terrorist," he said.
"The equipment they found is not for bomb-making. He's a hunter and has a licensed gun. The cartridges are expensive and he makes his own." He said Faisal had been accused of being a terrorist in the past and had been cleared of all charges by British courts.
Faisal Mostafa, who has a PhD in chemistry, is the head of the Green Crescent charity, set up by students in 1998 to carry out humanitarian work in Bangladesh.
According to his father, he travels to Bangladesh once a year to check on the workings of the orphanage.
"He has high blood pressure and a heart problem and I'm worried and so are his wife and children. I'm scared he will not get fair treatment and that is my greatest concern," he said.
Ghulam Mostafa criticised the British high commission in Dhaka, who initially denied that Faisal had been arrested. "He has dual nationality and the British high commission has told me they can't help," he added. "If he was here I would not be as worried because I know he would get a fair hearing."
His son was "a nice, hard-working boy" who had "set out to help the poor people of Bangladesh after seeing terrible suffering when he lived there as a child."
In Bangladesh, the Rapid Action Battalion said it had arrested four people, including a teacher and three caretakers. It is believed that Mostafa was arrested at Dhaka airport.
Small arms, ammunition, remote control devices and army uniforms were among the items police said they had recovered during the raid.
Mostafa's uncle, Major Haffizuddin Ahmed, a former minister for the Bangladesh Nation party, expressed his shock at the arrest.
"I felt terrible when I saw what had happened. I'm a political figure, and we feel bad that it's a family boy," he said in Dhaka. "We all asked, how could he get spoiled like this? He was a nice, good boy when he was young." Ahmed said he had not spoken to his nephew for five years.
An RAB officer, who declined to be named, said they acted on a tip-off. The raid was carried out after the madrasa, or religious seminary, had been kept under surveillance for a month.
"We watched the madrasa for a month. It looked suspicious because there were people coming and going at all times, late at night, and in madrasas, they don't allow parents to visit all the time so we knew it wasn't the mums and dads.
"We also thought it was strange that this madrasa was in such a nice area." He said they noticed it had a drawbridge that gets lifted up at night "and no other school has this kind of set-up".
A spokeswoman for the British high commissioner said: "We are aware of the report and we are working with the Bangladeshi government."
The Charity Commission said it was "seriously concerned" after the weapons cache was allegedly found during the raid. Andrew Hind, the commission's chief executive, said: "We are working with relevant law enforcement and other agencies to investigate the allegation that terrorist activity is connected with the charity."
Green Crescent's website showed that it was involved in projects in Bhola as well as several others around Bangladesh, and at least one in Pakistan.
Helen Carter, and Fariha Karim in Dhaka
guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 March 2009 13.05 GMT
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