Raymond Davis Case: Developing Story

[GUNNER]

Pakistan ruling party softens over US gunman

(AFP)

KARACHI — A spokeswoman for Pakistan's main ruling party on Monday moved to dilute anger over a US official accused of murdering two Pakistanis, saying diplomats have immunity and that he had an official visa.

Pakistan's ties with the United States have gone into crisis since police arrested Raymond Davis, who confessed to killing two men in self-defence on a busy street in the eastern city of Lahore on January 27.

Washington supports his claim and says he is a diplomat who should be released immediately in keeping with international law.

But the weak coalition Pakistani government is under enormous pressure to see Davis put on trial in a country awash with anti-American sentiment.

A court last Friday remanded him in custody for an extra two weeks and police accused him of cold-blooded murder.

"We have always abided by international laws and conventions," Pakistan People's Party (PPP) spokeswoman Fauzia Wahab told reporters in Karachi.

"Davis has an official business visa, so why argue and why we are risking our overall good reputation before the rest of the world?"

The US State Department on Saturday postponed a round of high-level talks with Afghanistan and Pakistan following failed attempts to get Pakistan to release Davis.

US lawmakers have threatened to cut payments to Pakistan, the beneficiary of $7.5 billion dollars of aid and $2 billion in military aid, and Washington has warned that high-level dialogue is at risk unless Davis is freed.

"America is the largest market for Pakistan, with whom we earn four billion dollars. Most Pakistanis who live in the United States send bulk of remittances to us to support our economy," said Wahab.

 

[rohailmalhi]

Yeah really PPP leadership are so cheap low life creatures , i didnt know .Yar koi self respect hoti hay .
Americans threatening to stop the aid , send our ambassador back , stopped dialogues on every level .See what they do for one man , who is spy in our contry and has killed 2 innocent civilians .

We really should stand up and show them that they are not everything .I would say it will best time ever from the creation of Pakistan , tht americans will cut off their ties with Pakistan .I would really pray for that time .

 

[rohailmalhi]

ISLAMABAD: The imperial arrogance of a superpower is increasing day by day for a weak democracy in Pakistan but still remains counterproductive. Pakistan is challenging the US the second time in less than six months after the Nato supply line was cut in October last year, which was resumed only after profound official apologies by Washington. This time, the US is not ready to apologise or show respect to Pakistani law but is trying to prove that Pakistan is not its most trusted but its most bullied ally.
A scheduled high-level trilateral meeting with Pakistan, which was aimed at discussing the situation in Afghanistan, has been put off. It wrongly assumed that postponing a diplomatic meeting would be enough for putting more pressure on Islamabad to release its shady secret agent Raymond Davis being tried for murder in Lahore.
This imperial arrogance never worked and Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir responded on Saturday that, “If I commit an immoral act, I won’t seek immunity.” As another pressure move, now the US officials have conveyed to Pakistan that if Raymond Davis will not be released in the coming days, then the visit of President Asif Ali Zardari to the US next month could also be postponed.
Highly reliable sources in the Foreign Office claimed that the US State Department is not calling the shots at least for the last 10 days, the White House is directly dealing with the Raymond Davis case under the pressure of CIA. It is now clear that Raymond Davis was working for CIA because CIA has stopped drone attacks in Pakistani tribal areas after his arrest.
It was also learnt that Pakistani officials in Washington are getting threatening messages directly from the White House. Pakistan Embassy in Washington has conveyed to the president and the prime minister in Islamabad last week that the US could postpone the visit of Zardari to Washington and some US congressmen are also planning to start a move for disrupting the US aid to Pakistan. Despite all these “threatening messages”, top government officials in Islamabad once again made it clear on Sunday that only the Pakistani courts will decide the fate of Raymond Davis.
A powerful federal minister very close to President Asif Ali Zardari told this scribe “We are not in a position to oblige the US because this matter is now sub judice and the Lahore High Court has included the name of Raymond Davis in the Exit Control List. If we will do anything in violation of the court orders, then the court will summon us for contempt and we are sure that the people of Pakistan will come out on the roads against us and our fate will be worse than Hosni Mubarak.”
When asked if there is unanimity in all the government institutions on the Raymond Davis case, then why Shah Mehmood Qureshi was not given the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the new cabinet, the minister had no satisfactory answer and accepted that the Qureshi affair had created many questions and only Prime Minister Gilani can answer these questions but he also said: “Let me tell you clearly that president, PM, Army chief and Punjab government are now on one wavelength on the Raymond Davis issue. Only the courts will decide his fate, we will not accept any US pressure, we are ready to face US sanctions because we know that new elections are very close and a small mistake on this issue will destroy the political future of Pakistan People’s Party.”
Despite all these off-the-record claims, no “powerful minister” is ready to say anything about the US on the record. Even Shah Mehmood Qureshi is making big claims only after he was not given Foreign Ministry. It is learnt that majority of the new cabinet members have advised the PM not to accept the US pressure. Initially, President Zardari asked the PM to find out some way to come out of the mounting US pressure but it was Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir who clearly wrote in one of his notes to the PM that “Raymond Davis is not a diplomat and we cannot compromise our national security by accepting US pressure on this issue. Let the courts decide the case, we should not provide immunity to a killer.”
Foreign Office sources said the arrogant attitude of the US on Raymond Davis case also exposed the seriousness of US for its war against terror and strategic dialogue with Pakistan. The US is ready to forget everything Pakistan did in the past just for a person who killed two Pakistanis in the name of so-called self-defence. The family of a third person is also planning to take some legal action against top police officials who have still not arrested the associates of Raymond Davis who killed motorcyclist Ibadur Rehman in their attempt to rescue the killer.
The Punjab Police officials claimed that they were in contact with US Consulate in Lahore for the arrest of the driver who killed a motorcyclist.
It is also important that diplomatic community in Islamabad is not supporting the US position on the Raymond Davis case. Many European diplomats exchanged views on this issue with this scribe and said that diplomats do not move and act like Raymond Davis moved and acted in Lahore. Diplomats are not entitled to carry illegal weapons with them.
One diplomat reminded me of my questions to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in a TV interview in 2009 in which I asked her that why US officials were moving in Pakistan with illegal weapons in their hands and when Pakistani police arrest them, why you put pressure on our government to release them. Hilary never had a satisfactory answer and promised in that television interview that she will get the details and will make sure that it does not happen again. But this promise was not fulfilled. US secret agents expanded their activities from Islamabad to Peshawar and from Lahore to Karachi under the nose of the PPP government.
One European diplomat said the US has forgotten all its responsibilities as a major international player just for Raymond Davis. Another diplomat said that tomorrow Raymond Davis type secret agents may kill more people in other capitals of the world and then the US will claim diplomatic immunity. He said Pakistan should not accept the US pressure because it will create more problems for diplomats all over the world.
An Arab diplomat said: “We condemn Taliban and al-Qaeda because they break the law of the land, we hunt them, we punish them but why can’t we arrest and punish a US citizen if he kills someone? What is the difference between Taliban and US secret agents. Both violate laws, both kill innocents.”

Diplomats do not support US stand on Davis

 

[ashok321]

If RD is let off and made to leave, he wont be guilty on THAT account. However, those who let him go (PPP) should be responsible. So forumites turret should swivel towards PPP....

But wait here!

If PPP is gone, what do you want, a Sharif nawaz govrnment, who is equally corrupt like Zardari?

Now the only option is that of Military a la Musharaf....But wait here too...

Was it not a Musharaf who agreed with Americans to facilitate drones and kill its own people ?

So what options are on the table for Pakistan awam?

 

[Leviza]

If RD is let off and made to leave, he wont be guilty on THAT account. However, those who let him go (PPP) should be responsible. So forumites turret should swivel towards PPP....

But wait here!

If PPP is gone, what do you want, a Sharif nawaz govrnment, who is equally corrupt like Zardari?

Now the only option is that of Military a la Musharaf....But wait here too...

Was it not a Musharaf who agreed with Americans to facilitate drones and kill its own people ?

So what options are on the table for Pakistan awam?

enjoying the issues here my friend from the east.....

well zardari is not just corrupt he is against Pakistan...
Nawaz is corrupt but still not as much as Zardari ...... but 100% not against Pakistan...
there are lots of other options as well (Imran khan, technocrats ) , they are not against Pakistan.....

so i hope got your answer

 

[greatsequence]

If RD is let off and made to leave, he wont be guilty on THAT account. However, those who let him go (PPP) should be responsible. So forumites turret should swivel towards PPP....

But wait here!

If PPP is gone, what do you want, a Sharif nawaz govrnment, who is equally corrupt like Zardari?

Now the only option is that of Military a la Musharaf....But wait here too...

Was it not a Musharaf who agreed with Americans to facilitate drones and kill its own people ?

So what options are on the table for Pakistan awam?

Slow and steady wins the race. Take the issues one by one and the issues can be solved. Let them be late than never.

 

[IndianArmy]

do u even know what ur talking about? Nusrat Fetah Ali Khan (late) was his uncle not father.. this show how well informed u r ..
Peace

Oh My bad, then.... I have seen him Sitting with Nusrat at a very young age and Performing, So assumed Nusrat was His Father... My Apologies....

 

[ashok321]

Slow and steady wins the race. Take the issues one by one and the issues can be solved. Let them be late than never.

Like India, Pakistan too is messed up with scams/corruption at high level.
Its time for people of both the countries to duplicate Egypt.
But I see very little resolve for India-Pak people to overwhelm the streets....How long these top level people should be allowed to bleed our countries dry ?

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction......

It is lights, camera, inaction in our part of this world....

 

[SpArK]

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan released​

Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) released Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and two others from pending investigations into recovery of foreign exchange case.

The singer has been asked to surrender his passport to DRI.

Rahat and two others persons from his crew- Maroof and Chitresh Shirivastava asked to appear before DRI on February 17 again.

Breaking news: Rahat Fateh Ali Khan released - India - DNA


Now chill and listen to this and relaxxxxxxxxx

 

[Ghareeb_Da_Baal]

Raymond Davis enjoys diplomatic immunity: Wahab
KARACHI: A spokeswoman for Pakistan’s main ruling party on Monday moved to dilute anger over a US official accused of murdering two Pakistanis, saying diplomats have immunity and that he had an official visa.
Pakistan’s ties with the United States have gone into crisis since police arrested Raymond Davis, who confessed to killing two men in self-defence on a busy street in Lahore on January 27.
“We have always abided by international laws and conventions,” Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) information secretary Fauzia Wahab told reporters in Karachi.
She said that diplomats as well as technical staff of foreign missions enjoy immunity under the Vienna Convention, and Raymond Davis is no exception.
Wahab said that the government has to handle this case with care as the United States is the largest donor of foreign aid to Pakistan.
“Davis has an official business visa, so why argue and why we are risking our overall good reputation before the rest of the world?”
“America is the largest market for Pakistan, with whom we earn four billion dollars. Most Pakistanis who live in the United States send bulk of remittances to us to support our economy,” said Wahab.
Regarding claims made by the former foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, that he had refused to grant a diplomatic visa to Raymond Davis, the information secretary said that Qureshi had violated the party’s discipline by making those claims.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was dropped from the cabinet when a new, smaller cabinet was announced last week, is said to have annoyed the party leadership “over his divergent opinion on the Raymond Davis issue”.
The US State Department on Saturday postponed high-level talks with Afghanistan and Pakistan following failed attempts to get Pakistan to release Davis.
US lawmakers have also threatened to cut payments to Pakistan, the beneficiary of $7.5 billion dollars of aid and $2 billion in military aid, and Washington has warned that high-level dialogue is at risk unless Davis is freed.

 

[Ghareeb_Da_Baal]

BREAKING NEWS

Fouzia Wahab at a press conference says Raymond Davis has a diplomatic visa and has diplomatic immunity

Lets all go home now.....case closed.

 

[twoplustwoisfour]

Lets all go home now.....case closed.

Let the conspiracy theories begin. If he had a diplomatic passport, why wait so much time to reveal that?

 

[ajtr]

Pakistan Starts to Pave the Way for Detained American's Release​

Ruling Party Spokesperson Invokes Geneva Convention in Case of U.S. Diplomat Raymond Davis Accused in Shooting

The spokesperson for Pakistan's ruling party invoked the Geneva Convention and diplomatic immunity for the first time today as a possible avenue for the U.S. to secure the release of Raymond Davis, the American diplomat who allegedly gunned down two Pakistani men last month.

Fauzia Wahab, a spokesperson for the Pakistan People Party, said that no diplomat can be kept in captivity and that Davis has an official diplomatic visa. The U.S. State Department has been demanding Davis' release based on the same points since the Jan. 25 shooting incident, but today marks the first time a prominent Pakistani official publicly backed the international agreement in Davis' case.

Wahab's comments come just a day after the Taliban issued a threat on the lives of anyone involved in Davis' release.

"Whether he is a judge, police, lawyer, army, policy maker or a politician, we will target him. We will kill him," a Taliban spokesman told The Associated Press Sunday.
Davis, 36, was arrested after allegedly shooting and killing two men on the streets of Lahore, Pakistan, who the U.S. State Department said were trying to rob him. A third Pakistani man was struck and killed by a vehicle that was reportedly racing to Davis' aid. U.S. officials have repeatedly declined to answer questions about Davis' precise job in Pakistan, saying only he was a "member of the administrative and technical staff" of the Islamabad embassy and traveled on a diplomatic passport. Public records show Davis has experience with the U.S. Special Forces and runs a small security company.

Despite holding a diplomatic passport, Davis has been held in Lahore since the incident and Lahore's police chief Friday rejected the idea he had acted in self-defense. The shooting was "intentional and cold-blooded murder," police chief Aslam Tareen said.

After the court's decision to detain Davis for an extended period Friday, Carmela Conroy, the U.S. Consul General in Lahore, said that the incident was a tragedy, and extended her sympathy to the family of the men killed, but said that Davis is "entitled to full immunity from prosecution" as a member of the U.S. Embassy staff in Islamabad.

"Under the rules, he should be freed immediately," said Conroy, who visited Davis in prison last week. She also said she regretted that authorities "did not consider ... eyewitness accounts and physical evidence" that indicated Davis acted in self defense.

Ray Davis and Diplomacy: Caught Between America and Pakistan
Davis' continuing detention, his recent move to a prison from the police station, and the apparent impending murder charge could infuriate the United States. A senior U.S. official said that so long as Davis is detained, any major U.S.-Pakistan meeting would be dominated by a discussion about Davis -- making normal bilateral discussions right now difficult to impossible.

But the embassy in Islamabad rejected the claim made by Pakistani officials in an ABC news report that pressure to release Davis included a meeting between National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Pakistan Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani in which Donilon threatened Haqqani with expulsion and the closure of U.S. consulates in Pakistan if Davis wasn't released last week.
"ABC News carried a story regarding a conversation in Washington between senior U.S. and Pakistani officials," said the statement, released by embassy spokeswoman Courtney Beale. "Although we are unable to discuss the substance of a private diplomatic meeting, U.S. Embassy Islamabad can state categorically that the description of the conversation in this report is simply inaccurate."

U.S. officials declined to specify which details in the story were inaccurate.

Haqqani also denied that he had been threatened.

"The characterization of my conversation with White House officials by ABC News borders fabrication," he said in a statement to ABC News today. "It is not our policy to reveal details of diplomatic conversations. I can say, however, that National Security Adviser Tom Donilon did, indeed, convey the US government's views about the case of Mr. Raymond Davis during a meeting on Monday evening but no ultimatum or threat was given. I conveyed the government of Pakistan's commitment to resolve the matter in accordance with Pakistani and international law. Both sides are working together to resolve the case expeditiously and to continue our multi-faceted strategic partnership."

Pakistani Officials: Shooting Victims Were Members of Pakistani Intelligence
Davis has become a political and intelligence football: he is caught between a federal government ruled by the Pakistan People's party and a Punjab government led by the opposition, which is more skeptical of U.S. policies; and he is caught in an intelligence game because he killed two men working for Pakistan's premiere intelligence agency, according to four Pakistani officials.

A congressional delegation from the House Armed Services committee visited Pakistan last weekend and raised the possibility that Davis' continuing detention would threaten military aid, according to a committee aide. But a senior Pakistani military official denied that was true.

"There were no threats," he said casually, shrugging his shoulders.

But there have been threats delivered to government officials, and the larger problem, those officials say, is that the pressure is boxing them in -- because it is eroding overall support for the United States.
Speaking in private drawing room conversations or in high-end coffee shops, even some of those who support the United States say they feel like they can't support Davis' release, especially not publicly. In their minds, the ambiguous nature of Davis' job, his killing two Pakistanis in broad daylight, and the wide coverage given to U.S. anger in Pakistan has shrunk the public acceptance of all U.S. policies in Pakistan.

"I think the response to the U.S. anger is more aggressive anti-American sentiments," said Ahmed Malik, sitting at the upscale Gloria Jean's coffee in Lahore. He and his friends said the U.S. was "bullying" Pakistan. "I think people feel it's totally unjustified for the Americans to ask for a man who's done something like this" to be released, Malik said.

Their increasing skepticism of U.S. diplomacy was echoed by the senior military official, who discussed Davis' detention on the condition of anonymity.

"It should disturb the U.S. when the liberal class, on the account of U.S. attitude and bullying… is showing a lot of frustration, anger, reservations," the official told ABC News.

Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.

 

[Aslan]

The deals are made and amounts settled and agreed on, paid for and deposited in foreign accounts perhaps. Other deals made and set and if need arises exists secured. Now people I give you RD the diplomat.

 

[GUNNER]

Gunslinger With Immunity


By H.D.S. GREENWAY

Published: February 14, 2011

There were lots of things to be afraid of in Baghdad in the bad old days — kidnapping, beheading, truck bombs — but nothing scared me more than trigger-happy Americans who careened out of the Green Zone, ready to shoot anybody and anything they saw as a real or imagined threat. Many were not soldiers, but private security guards under government contract who could, and did, kill with impunity — seemingly a law unto themselves.

On a recent visit to Pakistan, I found a country rife with conspiracy theories in which Americans are most often the villains. Blackwater plays a major role in Pakistani fears, no matter how it endeavors to change its name.

Some of these conspiracy theories are fantasies, but in the curious case of Raymond Davis, all of Pakistan’s nightmares about Americans have coalesced. And this flame is fanned by the American refusals to reveal what Davis was supposed to be doing.

The facts are few and mysterious. Davis, 36, an employee at the American consulate in Lahore, was driving through town with a fully loaded Glock automatic pistol. Two men approached his car on a motor bike, Davis says, with intent to rob him. They were found later to have stolen cellphones.

Davis opened up on them with his Glock through the windshield and killed them both. Then he apparently stepped out of his car and photographed their dead bodies before he sped away. He was later arrested.

The case was further complicated when another car sped out of the consulate, apparently coming to Davis’ rescue, killed a Pakistani on a bicycle and sped back to the consulate. Neither the car nor the driver have been produced for the Pakistani authorities to question or inspect.

The Americans claim diplomatic immunity for Davis under Geneva Convention rules, and they are right by their lights. But Pakistani law says that Pakistan has a say in who has diplomatic immunity and who does not, and Pakistan deserves a full explanation.

There the matter stands, with the Pakistani courts threatening to try Davis for murder. The prosecution is saying that the shootings were not in self-defense. The Americans are hinting darkly that Pakistan will suffer dire consequences, canceled visits to Washington and a cut in financial aid.

In the meantime Pakistan is in a spasm of anti-American fury. The question of what an American “diplomat” was doing with a loaded gun, ready to use it, in the streets of a Pakistani city needs a lot more daylight than the Americans are providing.

And, yes, it turns out that Davis was not a member of the U.S. Foreign Service, but a gun-for-hire private operative attached to the “technical and administrative” staff of the consulate, according to the U.S. Embassy.

We all know that the business of private security has ballooned in recent years under very lucrative government contracts. The employees are often Americans, Britons and South Africans with military experience who can put their training to work for a great deal more money than usually awaits them in a fully civilian job. We also know that with U.S. forces stretched to the breaking point, these mercenaries, unhappily, play a major role in guarding American installations and embassies abroad that were once guarded only by U.S. Marines.

But in case after case, these private operatives have used lethal — and not always justified — force, and it is not clear whose laws they are under. Hamid Karzai tried to have them all fired from Afghanistan, but couldn’t do it, so important were these private guns to the American war effort.

The case of Raymond Davis plunged into even deeper mystery when the Pakistanis say they found maps on him of high security installations. The Pakistanis are suggesting he may have known the men whom he killed. The Americans, in the meantime, refuse any further explanation of his activities. The Lahore High Court won’t let the Pakistani government turn him over to the U.S. Embassy until they have ruled on his diplomatic status.

The Davis killings have resonance with a population already infuriated by the frequent drone attacks that often kill as many bystanders as militants. What is “collateral damage” to Americans is extra-judicial murder to many Pakistanis. The image of the careless American gunslinger is ingrained around the world through our greatest cultural export, the movies.

The best outcome would be for the Pakistanis to hand Davis over to the Americans under the terms of the Geneva Conventions, with the Americans giving a full explanation of what Davis was doing, and a worldwide crackdown on these private operatives who kill again and again with impunity or immunity.

And America should stop threatening Pakistan with loss of aid. The aid serves U.S. interests, not just Pakistan’s.




http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/opinion/15iht-edgreenway15.html