Six men have been jailed for the kidnapping of a Muslim businessman last year after pleading guilty at Glasgow's high court.

The gang had demanded a ransom of £2.5 billion for shopkeeper Javed Mukhtar after abducting the 58-year-old from his family home in Crossmyloof during Ramadan on September 29th 2006.

Handing out sentences to the six men today, Lord Hodge told the defendants that the kidnapping had constituted a "very serious criminal enterprise".

Darren Wright, the 31-year-old ringleader of the plot, was sentenced to spend 11 years and three months in jail; Peter Haining, 28, was handed a 12-and-a-half-year sentence, 37-year-old David Smith was told he would spend five years and three months behind bars; while Ian Rosales was given a three-year jail-term. All four defendants are from Heywood, Greater Manchester.

Two other defendants, Leslie White, 65, of Craigavon, County Armagh; and Craig Adams, 23, of Bury, were given sentences of six years and four years and ten months respectively.

Upon being seized, Mr Mukhtar was driven to Heywood and moved to different locations three times.

His captors were eventually apprehended by police 25 days later after collecting a ransom case of £400,000 in Glasgow.

"It was a 25-day inquiry, by far the longest for a conventional kidnap in the United Kingdom," commented Strathclyde police's Detective Superintendent Willie Prendergast.

"It was highly unusual in that the crime was committed in our area but the whole hub of the inquiry subsequently fell upon the Manchester area of England.

"And indeed this was compounded as it triangulated over to Northern Ireland, where the person who actually made the demands was based."

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