British lawyers are in talks with Pakistani officials over a possible suspects swap involving a man wanted in connection with an alleged airline bomb plot, it was reported last night.

Lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service are believed to have flown to Islamabad last month to try to secure the release of Rashid Rauf from a top-security prison.

In exchange, Pakistan wants the extradition of up to eight people living in Britain who they claim were involved in a bloody uprising in the western province of Baluchistan.

Mr Rauf, who is originally from Birmingham, was arrested by Pakistan’s security service, the ISI, last August after British intelligence claimed that it had foiled a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. He has been charged in Pakistan with possession of 29 bottles of hydrogen peroxide, which al-Qaeda has been known to use in bombs.

Family members claim that Mr Rauf has been set up, and that the peroxide was to bleach his beard.

Among the Baluchistan representatives that the Pakistan Government wants extradited is Mehran Baluch, The Guardian reports. The newspaper claims that Pakistani sources believe that another of the men is heavily involved in the Baluchistan Liberation Army, which was added to the British Government’s proscribed organisations last summer when contact between the two countries over Mr Rauf’s possible extradition began.

“I knew that they were after me but I never knew to what extent,” Mr Baluch told The Guardian. “When I speak at the UN in Geneva they try to threaten me through various groups to tell me to take my issues back home, that they are not international issues. I have grown up with this threat, but I didn’t think they would go to these lengths.

“What offences have I committed? I am standing up for human rights, I am speaking out against the disappearances going on in Baluchistan.

“I would like to tell the British they need to understand the Baluchi perspective and the whole story. They should not just see this from a Pakistani point of view.

“They are lying. Pakistan is committing human rights abuses in Baluchistan. My job primarily is to speak out against this. I address issues of human rights, especially the disappearances.”

Baluchistan is the poorest and most thinly populated province of Pakistan. A desert region bordering Afghanistan to the north and Iran to the west, it is rich in mineral resources, including copper, uranium and gas. The militants want more autonomy, greater political representation and a bigger slice of the income from the natural resources.

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