• Davis faces possible execution if convicted
• Thousands rally and call for his head
  
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Pakistan today put an American spy charged with killing two Pakistanis on trial, despite U.S. demands for his release, complicating a case that is straining a relationship crucial to ending the war in Afghanistan.

Raymond Davis, a former U.S. special forces officer, says he acted in self-defence when he shot the men on a busy street in the eastern city of Lahore last month.

He has been charged with double-murder and faces possible execution. Washington says he has diplomatic immunity and must be repatriated.

Today, thousands of Islamists turned out in Lahore and Karachi to chant slogans calling for him to receive the death penalty.

The killings, and Davis's recently revealed CIA links, have inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan, where Washington's already-uneasy alliance with the government is seen as hegemony by many ordinary Pakistanis.

Conflicting accounts about the identity of the victims - Davis and a police report indicate they were armed robbers; Pakistani media and some officials portray them as innocent - have also given President Ali Asif Zardari's unpopular government little choice but to go through the courts.

Davis's trial was held inside Kot Lakhpat jail, where he has been detained since February 11 amid extremely tight security.

Protesters have burned effigies of Davis and U.S. flags since details of the killings became public, sparking concerns about his safety.