ISLAMABAD, Dec 3: Pakistan has demanded access to six Pakistanis held in Kenya over last week’s attack on Israelis near Mombasa in which 16 people died, a foreign ministry statement said here on Tuesday.

A Kenyan police spokesman said last week that the Pakistanis and four Somalis were arrested shortly before the attacks on Thursday for entering Kenya illegally and then came under suspicion by those investigating the assaults.

The foreign ministry said Pakistan’s High Commission in Nairobi had requested the Kenyan authorities for consular access to determine the nationality of the detained people “being referred to as Pakistani nationals”.

“This request has been denied,” the statement said. Kenya’s Acting High Commissioner to Pakistan has also been summoned to the foreign ministry where he was asked to urge his government to give Pakistan access to the detainees.

According to the statement, Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Nairobi said the people detained by Kenya in connection with the blast were arrested three days before it happened “on charges of violation of local immigration regulations”.

Kenyan police held a Western couple after the attacks but later released them after questioning, saying they had no connection with the attacks.

Kenyan authorities said at the weekend they had found no link between the detainees and Al Qaeda. But Washington said on Tuesday that there was increasing reason to believe Al Qaeda was involved in the Kenya attacks.—Reuters