Berlin demands to know why spies held

BERLIN, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Germany is demanding an explanation for why three of its agents were arrested by Pakistani police near the Afghanistan border and detained.

The three Germans were arrested Saturday in Peshawar and taken to the capital, Islamabad, for questioning, before being released to the German Embassy in Islamabad and returning to Germany Sunday night, Der Spiegel reported.

"In our view, the incident still needs further clarification," a German Foreign Ministry source told the magazine, while the Pakistani Embassy confirmed Berlin had made known its "concern."

Pakistani police said the two men and one woman had given conflicting reports about their identities.

"First they said they worked for a development agency," a Peshawar police officer said. "Then they said they worked for the German Embassy and were tasked with overseeing development projects in the region."

The trio reportedly lacked documentation to prove their claims.

Islamabad said the three foreign agents work for Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, known by its German acronym, BND.

"We have observed them for a long while and determined they were spying," a source said.

Germany's Foreign Ministry would not confirm they were BND agents, describing them only as "diplomatically registered workers for the embassy in Islamabad." But German and Pakistani security sources told Der Spiegel they were German foreign agents.

Pakistani authorities say the three had business cards indicating they were from the German Agency for International Cooperation, an aid group under whose name their vehicle was registered.

Pakistani police released the names of all three German agents and allowed them to be photographed by local media.

GAIC said it did not employ the three Germans and did not lend a vehicle to them.

After the arrests, some aid workers fear they, too, could be suspected of espionage.

"That is definitely a life-threatening issue," one development worker said. "Certainly, extremists don't think twice when they believe someone is a Western spy. And we work in a lot of regions where there are extremists."