By DPA,
Madrid/Barcelona : Spanish police Tuesday detained six Pakistanis on suspicion of tax evasion and of financing Islamist terrorism, judicial sources said.
The six were held in the Barcelona area. Police searched their homes, businesses owned by them, and other addresses in locations including Madrid, Alicante and the Canary Islands.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the arrests were based on suspicions of tax evasion rather than terrorism, though the latter charge had not been excluded.
The arrests ordered by anti-terrorism judge Baltasar Garzon were made in neighbourhoods where others had been held on terrorism-related charges in recent months.
Spanish police have detained hundreds of Islamist suspects since extremists inspired by Al Qaeda blew up four Madrid commuter trains, killing 191 people in 2004.
Yet courts acquitted about half of the 63 people who were tried on charges linked to Islamist terrorism in 2007.