Pak court rejects bail plea of US citizen held on ‘illegal stay’ charges
By ANIMonday, February 28, 2011
PESHAWAR - A Pakistan court on Monday rejected the bail application of US citizen Aaron Mark De Haven, who was arrested by Peshawar police for overstaying his visa.
“The bail application of Aaron Mark De Haven has been rejected because he had no legal documents,” the Dawn quoted the public prosecutor, as saying.
Earlier on Saturday, a local court had sent Aaron to jail on a 14-day judicial remand.
Aaron had told the court that he had come to Pakistan on a work visa and ran a company named Catalyst Services, and that he had already submitted an application to the Home Ministry for the extension of his visa.
The court has sought the record of Aaron from police on the next hearing, which is scheduled on February 28.
The US national, who hails from Virginia, was taken into custody from Falcon Complex, a residential area in Peshawar, on Friday.
Aaron’s visa had expired on October 23 last year, but he kept on staying in Pakistan without a valid visa document.
According to another report, Aaron’s arrest was apparently part of a clampdown on American contractors by Pakistani authorities.
Driven by the suspicion that the Central Intelligence Agency had slipped many secret operatives like double murder-accused Raymond Davis into Pakistan in the past six months, Pakistan’s premier spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence has demanded an accounting by the American spy service of all its contractors working in the country, claimed a senior Pakistani intelligence official. (ANI)
