Diplomatic visit for accused reporter

Mr Bassey was seized near the border with Afghanistan

A UK reporter being held in Pakistan amid spying claims is to receive a visit from the British High Commission.

Amardeep Bassey, 29, investigations editor of the Birmingham-based Sunday Mercury, was seized last week near the border with Afghanistan.

The 29-year-old, from Wolverhampton, is being held in Landi Kotal prison near Peshawar after he was arrested for failing to have an exit visa.

Friends and colleagues of Mr Bassey are hopeful the visit could lead to a breakthrough in the journalist's quest to be released.

We are hopeful that we will have more news after the Commissioner has visited Amardeep

David Brookes
Trinity Mirror

His employers at the Sunday Mercury said Mr Bassey had been moved from the military jail in Landi Kotal where he had been in a lock-up with 55 other inmates since his arrest.

He is now in custody at the Joint Interrogation Centre in Peshawar where he will face questioning by the Pakistani Special Branch.

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed Mr Bassey was due to receive his first visit from a member of the British High Commission staff in Islamabad on Sunday.

Senior representatives from Trinity Mirror, the parent company of the Sunday Mercury have flown out to Islamabad to try to bring pressure for Mr Bassey's early release.

'Not a spy'

The newspaper's editor David Brookes said: "We are hopeful that we will have more news after the commissioner has visited Amardeep.

"Not only will he be able to see the conditions in which Amardeep is being held, but he will hopefully be able to discover what, if anything, he is accused of."

Mr Brookes said: "I have been in direct contact with the Pakistani authorities who appear to have shifted their position.

"Midweek they were satisfied that Amardeep was not a spy.

"But they now appear suspicious of Amardeep's motives for being in the region, although we've pointed out that he was travelling with guides from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan."

Mr Bassey travelled to Kabul in Afghanistan three weeks ago on a Foreign Office media trip with other British journalists and stayed on in the region to report on conditions there.