Pakistani border guards have arrested a man who claimed to be an American citizen for entering Pakistan illegally from neighboring Iran, an official said Saturday. The man, identified as Essa Jesus, 56, was arrested late Friday in Taftan, a southwestern Pakistani town near the border with Iran, said Akbar Lashari, a senior official with Levies, a police force responsible for security along the border and in tribal parts of southwestern Baluchistan province.
"He had no visa. When he was interrogated, he said that he is a tourist from America and a resident of Alabama," Lashari said. Lashari said the man could speak Urdu, Pashtu and Persian — languages spoken mainly in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said it had no information about the arrest in Taftan, about 435 miles southwest of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.
In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the man said he lost his American passport and other documents in Iran five years ago. "I came to Pakistan to go to the American Embassy and get my passport," he said. He said he was a former restaurant waiter in Alabama and left the United States 40 years ago, going first to London, then India, and then traveling in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. |