LAHORE, Pakistan, Jan 28, (AFP): A US consulate employee appeared in a Pakistani court Friday and was ordered to be held in police custody over the shooting deaths of two men he said he killed in self-defence, police said. The man, named as Raymond Davis and described by the US State Department as an American civilian working for the US consulate in Lahore, was being held at a police station on double murder charges over the deaths of two motorcyclists. “We produced the American in the court of magistrate Zafar Iqbal, who remanded him into police custody for six days,” senior police official Zulfiqar Hameed told AFP, adding that Davis would appear in court again on Thursday. A third Pakistani was crushed to death by a consulate car that went to help Davis following the shooting in a busy street in the eastern city on Thursday.

The incident sparked several small protests across the country on Friday, a sign of the anti-American sentiment that is already running high partly because of a covert US drone campaign in the northwest tribal areas that has provoked deadly revenge attacks by militants. Police said Davis described himself as a “technical adviser” with the consulate. Police investigation officer Muneer Ahmed told AFP that post-mortem examinations were under way. The American national told police he shot the two motorcycle riders from his vehicle in self-defence after they pulled a pistol on him in an attempted robbery, police officials said. Punjab province’s law minister Rana Sanaullah said the American seemed to have been on personal business at the time of the shooting.

“He said that he was returning from withdrawing cash from a bank and we are verifying this,” Sanaullah told a news conference in Lahore. Two handguns were found close to the victims’ bodies, officers said, but police chief Aslam Tarin said they so far appeared to have no previous criminal record. Imran Haider, the elder brother of one of the motorcyclists, 22-year-old Faizan Haider, said his brother only carried a pistol for protection, following the death of a third brother last month, and insisted the gun was licensed.
He said his brother was travelling home with his friend from a court hearing when the incident took place.

“My brother was innocent, he was not a criminal. We need justice,” said the 34-year-old. At least six small anti-American demonstrations were held in cities across Pakistan on Friday, with about 400 people rallying in total, AFP reporters said. In the capital Islamabad and in the southern city of Karachi, protesters set American flags on fire. In Islamabad protesters scuffled with police after they tried to march to the US embassy carrying placards inscribed with anti-US slogans and shouting: “Go America go,” and “Death for cruel America.” One banner called for Davis to be hanged. Police officer Ahmed said another murder case had been registered against unknown foreigners in the second vehicle over the death of the third man.

Sanaullah said the US consulate had agreed to release the second vehicle to police. More than 100 people had blocked the road after the incident, setting tyres on fire in protest. Meanwhile, the United States said Thursday it will try hard to ensure there is no anti-American backlash from a shooting incident in which a US consular worker was charged with the murder of two Pakistani men. “We want to make sure that a tragedy like this does not affect the strategic partnership that we’re building with Pakistan,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. “And we’ll work as hard as we can to explain that to the Pakistani people,” Crowley said.