US citizen held n Pakistan on 'illegal stay' charges files bail plea in court

Islamabad, Feb 27(ANI): US citizen Aaron Mark De Haven, who had been arrested by the police in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on 'illegal stay' charges, has filed a bail plea in the court.

Earlier, a local court of Peshawar sent Aaron to jail on a 14-day judicial remand on Saturday after was presented there amid tight security, Geo TV reported.

Aaron 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)