Mystery Over Detained American Angers Pakistan

[StrontiumDog]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/wo...mid=tw-nytimes

Mystery Over Detained American Angers Pakistan

By JANE PERLEZ

Published: February 8, 2011

LAHORE, Pakistan — The case of Raymond A. Davis, a former United States Special Forces soldier who is being held in connection with the deaths of two Pakistanis, has stirred a diplomatic furor, sending the precarious relationship between the United States and Pakistan to a new low, both sides say.


Arif Ali/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Raymond A. Davis is in custody in Pakistan, charged in two deaths.

Mr. Davis, 36, was driving in dense traffic in this city on Jan. 27 when, he later told the police, two Pakistani men on a motorcycle tried to rob him. He shot and killed both and was arrested immediately afterward by police officers who say he was carrying a Glock handgun, a flashlight that attached to a headband and a pocket telescope.

The mystery about what Mr. Davis was doing with this inventory of gadgets has touched directly on Pakistani resentments that members of the large American security presence here roam the country freely and are not answerable to the Pakistani authorities.

The Pakistani press, dwelling on the items in Mr. Davis’s possession and his various identity cards, has been filled with speculation about his specific duties, which American officials would not discuss. Mr. Davis’s jobs have been loosely defined by American officials as “security” or “technical,” though his duties were known only to his immediate superiors.

The Obama administration insists that Mr. Davis is protected by diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Conventions and that he must be released from custody. He was unlawfully seized on the street by the police after the shootings, the administration says, and should have been allowed to return to the American Consulate in Lahore in conformity with diplomatic protection.

The United States has warned Pakistan that if Mr. Davis is not released, a much sought-after state visit by President Asif Ali Zardari to Washington, planned for the end of March, could be jeopardized and badly needed financial assistance could be cut.

Last weekend on the sidelines at a conference in Munich, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, that Mr. Davis was being held illegally and must be freed, a senior American official said.

American officials said they were concerned for the safety of Mr. Davis, who is being held by the law enforcement authorities of Punjab Province, an area that is becoming increasingly radicalized by Islamic militants.

The Pakistani government, facing public anger and round-the-clock press coverage, has resisted the American demands for Mr. Davis’s release, saying the courts will deal with him.

Religious parties have rallied round the families of the dead men, further stiffening the reluctance of the government to free Mr. Davis.

He is being held at a police training center in Lahore under a kind of house arrest, where he is isolated from Pakistani prisoners, according to a senior Pakistani police investigator. He has refused to answer any questions, or talk about his family, the investigator said.

The public furor increased Sunday when the 18-year-old wife of one of the men Mr. Davis shot committed suicide, after saying she believed that the American would be unfairly freed.

At the heart of the public outcry seems to be uncertainty over the nature of Mr. Davis’s work, and questions about why his camera, according to police investigators, had pictures of buildings in Pakistani cities.

One of the identification cards confiscated by the police after his arrest and given to a Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, said he was a Defense Department contractor. Another identification card said he was attached to the consulate in Peshawar, which contradicts an initial American Embassy statement on the day of the shooting that described Mr. Davis as a staff member of the consulate in Lahore.

According to the Pakistani police, Mr. Davis, dressed in jeans and a checked shirt, was driving along one of the busiest thoroughfares in Lahore when he shot the two men through the windshield of his car. He then stepped out of his car and photographed the dead men with a digital camera. He said at the time that he shot in self-defense because he believed that the men were armed, the police said.

Dr. Fahhar-u-Zamana, who conducted the post-mortem examination, said one victim, Faizan Haider, had five bullets in his body, including two in his back. The other victim, Muhammad Fahim, had four bullets in his body, including one in his brain and one in his back.

The Lahore police said Mr. Haider and Mr. Fahim were armed and carrying stolen cellphones when they were shot.

Moments after Mr. Davis shot the two men, he called for help, and a vehicle belonging to the American Consulate in Lahore raced to the scene, driving the wrong way on a one-way street. It ran over a Pakistani cyclist, who later died in a hospital.

Photographs of the windshield of Mr. Davis’s white rental car, with the bullet holes in it, were widely published in the Pakistani press, accompanied by remarks about Mr. Davis’s accurate marksmanship.

Mr. Davis spent 10 years in the American military, starting with basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., in 1993. He moved to special warfare training with the Third Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1998, and left the Army in 2003. His only overseas posting, according to his Army service record, was a six-month stint as a member of a United Nations peacekeeping force in Macedonia in 1994.

After leaving the military, Mr. Davis apparently decided to take advantage of the boom in the military contracting business. He and his wife, Rebecca Davis, set up Hyperion Protective Services in 2006 in Nevada, a company that appears to have sought government contracts for security services, according to company filings in Nevada.

The company does not appear to have won big contracts, and may have been in the business of offering just Mr. Davis’s services, according to a former Special Forces officer who reviewed the company filings.

Mr. Davis arrived in Pakistan in late 2009, according to his visa application from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That document described his rank as “administrative and technical staff.”

His first assignment was apparently in Peshawar, a city on the edge of the tribal areas. A Pakistani who worked in the house where Mr. Davis stayed remembered him as a generous tipper who left several hundred dollars for each of the staff members when he left last year.

Whatever the resolution of Mr. Davis’s case, there are bound to be repercussions, Pakistani officials said. “The murders in Lahore should lead to stricter measures directed toward putting an end to the free movement of armed U.S. personnel on our streets,” said Saeed Khalid, a former director of the Americas Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan, Waqar Gillani from Lahore, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

[Davis Knowlton]

^No mystery here at all. He is a security contractor, under contract to the US Department of State. He is a former Special Forces Sergeant, and speaks Punjabi. His military, and especially his language, skills make him unusually valuable. That is why he had been on contract in various parts of Pakistan for two years or more. He was accorded a Diplomatic passport and limited diplomatic immunity just for situations such as the one in which he now finds himself. He had a camera and other equipment in order to do his job, possibly in this case searching out secure routes for movement throughout the city. He had a weapon to protect himself from people just like the two he killed when they tried to either rob him at gunpoint, or assassinate him. Despite the total garbage being spewed forth by the Pakistani press, the two "boys" on the motorcycle were known violent criminals who had just robbed a Pakistani man at gunpoint moments before. Loaded weapons and stolen goods were found on both bodies. So, Ray was doing his job - and two dickheads targeted the wrong guy. And, because we have a totally spineless President and Secretary of State, and because Egypt was blowing up at the same time, the USG threw Ray under the bus. Now that Egypt has calmed down a bit, they are trying to reason with these Pakistani lunatics to get him out. Ray is hunkered down, not talking, and waiting for the help he was promised. Must be scary having to depend on Hillary when your ass is in a sling. Good luck to him; I hope he makes it out soon, and in one piece. No mystery here, just some good shooting.

[kingwilly]

^No mystery here at all. He is a security contractor, under contract to the US Department of State. He is a former Special Forces Sergeant, and speaks Punjabi. His military, and especially his language, skills make him unusually valuable. That is why he had been on contract in various parts of Pakistan for two years or more. He was accorded a Diplomatic passport and limited diplomatic immunity just for situations such as the one in which he now finds himself. He had a camera and other equipment in order to do his job, possibly in this case searching out secure routes for movement throughout the city. He had a weapon to protect himself from people just like the two he killed when they tried to either rob him at gunpoint, or assassinate him. Despite the total garbage being spewed forth by the Pakistani press, the two "boys" on the motorcycle were known violent criminals who had just robbed a Pakistani man at gunpoint moments before. Loaded weapons and stolen goods were found on both bodies. So, Ray was doing his job - and two dickheads targeted the wrong guy. And, because we have a totally spineless President and Secretary of State, and because Egypt was blowing up at the same time, the USG threw Ray under the bus. Now that Egypt has calmed down a bit, they are trying to reason with these Pakistani lunatics to get him out. Ray is hunkered down, not talking, and waiting for the help he was promised. Must be scary having to depend on Hillary when your ass is in a sling. Good luck to him; I hope he makes it out soon, and in one piece. No mystery here, just some good shooting.

yup.

in a word
or 500

[bobo746]

^ what he said ^

[harrybarracuda]

So a bit of extrajudicial killing is OK if it's under a diplomatic passport? I can just see the 'Mericans taking that point of view if a Paki shot a couple of boys in the 'hood.

Sounds more to me like a couple of the enemy trying to take out a known soldier and coming off worst because they were, as expected for the bacon sarnies, crap at it.

I can see why the Pakis are up in arms, but stopping the president's shopping trip and cutting off some of the back handers should have him home in no time.

Just let it go to court so a Pakistani judge can declare him innocent and they can have been seen to follow due process (if they can call it that) rather than kow towing to their paymasters.

It's all about face.

[HermantheGerman]

Another good reason to pull out of this shit hole and leave the fortune and faith up to Allah.

[Cujo]

Another good reason to pull out of this shit hole and leave the fortune and faith up to Allah.

That's a good idea. Leave a bunch of crazed towelheads in charge of nuclear weapons.
How long before they would be firing them of to the U.S.?
They wouldn't have the concerns about retaliation that normal people do.

[Jesus Jones]

Another good reason to pull out of this shit hole and leave the fortune and faith up to Allah.

Well the ain't going to happen for geopolitical reasons, is it?

even

[nidhogg]

Just let it go to court so a Pakistani judge can declare him innocent .

Sorry but no. Diplomatic immunity is there for well established and necesssary reasons. Unless his country withdraws his immunity, he is, and should be completely inviolate. That commonly agreed rule protect all diplomats in and from all countries around the world.Unless they release him forthwith, every single country that America has sway with should immediately expell any and all Pakistani diplomats.

[Davis Knowlton]

^Precisely.

[ItsRobsLife]

Just let it go to court so a Pakistani judge can declare him innocent .

Sorry but no. Diplomatic immunity is there for well established and necesssary reasons. Unless his country withdraws his immunity, he is, and should be completely inviolate. That commonly agreed rule protect all diplomats in and from all countries around the world.Unless they release him forthwith, every single country that America has sway with should immediately expell any and all Pakistani diplomats.

Moments after Mr. Davis shot the two men, he called for help, and a vehicle belonging to the American Consulate in Lahore raced to the scene, driving the wrong way on a one-way street. It ran over a Pakistani cyclist, who later died in a hospital.

Do you think that is ok too? The consulate staff were breaking the law and killed an innocent member of the public in the process. No doubt they will also get diplomatic immunity.

[Tunaka]

So a bit of extrajudicial killing is OK if it's under a diplomatic passport?

How about self-defense against two violent criminals trying to rob him?

[Poo and Pee]

Apparently one of the 'victims' wives commited suicide recently - by consuming rat poison. they are burning efigies in the streets, and calling death to america all because these criminal scum got what they deserved.
in a lawless place like pakistan they would not blink an eyelid if any pakistani citizen did the same thing, under the same circumtances.

the hypocritical fuckwits would be nothing more than laughable, if they werent so evil and violent.

fuck'em, and their prophet mohammed too

[Bower]

What a mess, Its only the withdrawl of $$$$ that will get the guy out, and soon i hope.
Diplomatic pressure could help, send all Pakistani diplomats home from countries involved in Afganistan.

[harrybarracuda]

Here is a quite balanced take on things. (Good point: How do we know his name is Raymond Davis?!).

There has seldom been a drama-free moment during Pakistan’s short history. The themes have predominantly been of recurrent violence ranging from wars, civil upheavals, military coups, terrorist attacks, political assassinations, and natural disasters. Against this backdrop, the Raymond Davis affair may seem like a storm in a teacup but, if inappropriately handled, it could rapidly transform into a diplomatic tsunami.

To avert this possibility, emotions have to be set aside and replaced by a dispassionate appraisal of the incident in which a US national, Raymond Davis (or whatever his real name), shot dead two Pakistani men in central Lahore on January 27. A third citizen was crushed to death by an American Consulate vehicle that came speeding from the wrong end of a one-way street to aid Davis.

Davis has claimed that he acted in self-defense. He felt that the two men were armed and were about to attack him. If this is established, then he has not violated the law because self-defense is permissible under articles 96, 97 and 100 of the Pakistan Penal Code. The three men who were killed had not committed any crime either. The individual run over by a car was entirely innocent which the driver of the vehicle was not.

However, the eye of the potential storm is the US embassy demand that Davis be released forthwith on the ground that he has diplomatic immunity under article 29 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961, which stipulates that: “The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving State shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person, freedom or dignity.” This immunity is also applicable under article 37 (2) of the Convention to “members of the administrative and technical staff” of a diplomatic mission.

As per article 32 of the Vienna Convention, immunity can be waived by the sending state and this “waiver must always be express.” Had this been done, the brewing crisis could have been defused. However, far from waiving his immunity, Washington has insisted that Davis is under illegal detention and has sought his immediate release.

The incident is now sub judice and further comments on legal aspects cannot be made. But this does not preclude an analysis of the concept of diplomatic immunity in terms of its origin as well as some of the instances when it has been invoked by Pakistan and other South Asian countries.

It was recognised even in ancient Greece that emissaries between city states would not be able to function unless they were accorded safe passage and protection. Centuries later, in 1709, the British Parliament enacted legislation granting diplomatic immunity to resident ambassadors but its application was confined to England. However, it was not till the Congress of Vienna in 1815 that a serious attempt was made to codify diplomatic immunities and this was further fine-tuned and broadened in its application with the adoption of the Havana Convention regarding Diplomatic Officers in 1928. Several years after the establishment of the United Nations, the draft prepared by the International Law Commission was adopted as the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations on April 18, 1961 and has been ratified by 186 countries.

The privileges and immunities incorporated in the Convention are integral to modern diplomatic practice and have been availed of by all countries. Thus, last month, the Indian Embassy in Washington is reported to have made a demarche to the State Department requesting diplomatic immunity for Kamal Nath, a cabinet minister responsible for urban development. The minister had been summoned by a US Court regarding a law suit that alleged his involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. However, Kamal Nath’s lawyers have denied that he has been served any summons though he is quoted by the media as saying: “As far as I know, the US has not rejected it (the Indian Embassy demarche), at least not to my knowledge.”

In mid-January 2011, the British government requested a waiver of diplomatic immunity for Anil Verma, a senior Indian Administrative Service officer who had been appointed as Economic Minister at the Indian High Commission in London. Verma had earlier been questioned by the Scotland Yard regarding allegations that he had assaulted and inflicted corporal injuries on his wife after a heated argument on Dec 11, 2010. The British request was turned down by the Indian government which has, instead, recalled Verma to New Delhi.

Similarly, in 2004, as widely reported in the media, Pakistan also stood by its Permanent Representative in New York invoking diplomatic immunity after he had been accused of violence against a woman friend following an altercation. This was a relatively minor incident compared to the discovery of heroin in 1975 in the possession of Pakistan’s Ambassador in Spain or the recovery of 16 kilograms of high intensity explosives from Mohammad Arshad Cheema, First Secretary at the Pakistan Embassy in Kathmandu. On both occasions, diplomatic immunity was sought and granted.

An even more sensational recourse to diplomatic immunity took place in 1979 when the Burmese ambassador to Sri Lanka killed his wife as she got out of her car after visiting a member of a music band with whom she was allegedly having an affair. The next morning neighbours informed the authorities that the envoy had built a funeral pyre in his back lawn on which he had placed his wife’s body. When the police arrived, the ambassador stopped them at the gate because he said that his residence was Burmese territory. In effect, he had invoked article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations under which the premises of a diplomatic mission are inviolate. Despite the seriousness of the crime, the Sri Lankan Government was unable to proceed against the envoy who was eventually, but not immediately, recalled to his country.

The legal fiction of ex-territoriality of diplomatic premises that is conceded by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has at times been misused, albeit on few occasions, to undermine the security of states. Under such circumstances, the receiving state would be perfectly justified in entering the residences and offices of a diplomatic mission. Thus on Feb 10, 1973, Pakistani security personnel forcibly entered the Iraqi Embassy in Islamabad where, according to reports at the time, 300 Soviet-made submachine guns and 50,000 rounds of ammunition along with a substantial amount of cash had been stockpiled for distribution amongst Baloch separatist groups.

If law is reason, free from passion, as the ancient Greeks believed, there is need to temper the inflamed emotions that the Raymond Davis incident has understandably aroused. The death of three Pakistanis is undoubtedly tragic. But a dispassionate assessment has to be made on the question of diplomatic immunity that has been claimed on Davis’ behalf by the US government. The essence of law is not in the shapeless vapours of mere abstractions. It stands on the solid ground of its letter and spirit.

[Davis Knowlton]

^^Jesus! That's hardly balanced, and has little to with with the case we are discussing. It is mostly blather about other cases, in other countries, of which we have no details. Your first highlighted section "he felt that the two men were armed", is just total crap. He fucking well knew it. The Pakistani police have confirmed that both would-be assailants were armed with handguns; they were recovered, loaded, one each, off the bodies. Numerous Pakistani witnesses have confirmed this, and the fact that they pointed these guns at Davis. The next sentence says, "The three men who were killed had not committed any crime either." This may be true in the case of the unfortunate who got run over. But, it is certainly not the case for either of the two dickheads he shot, who were both illegally armed and who, again according to Pakistani witnesses and Pakistani police, had just robbed a Pakistani man at gunpoint moments before. Two paragraphs later, the author says that the US could have waived his diplomatic immunity, but chose not to. Why in the fuck would they? He was a diplomat, legally accredited, and he defended himself. Why in the fuck would they waive his immunity, and cast him to the mercy of a barbaric Pakistani court? And finally, who cares what the fuck his name is? His passport, a legal USG document, is in the name of Raymond Davis, as is the Pakistani Diplomatic Note granting him diplomatic immunity. You are not normally this obtuse, Harry. A shit-stirrer, yes, but obtuse, not usually to this degree. It's simple - a case of good shooting, and unfortunately bad driving by the extraction vehicle.

[harrybarracuda]

^^Jesus! That's hardly balanced, and has little to with with the case we are discussing. It is mostly blather about other cases, in other countries, of which we have no details. Your first highlighted section "he felt that the two men were armed", is just total crap. He fucking well knew it. The Pakistani police have confirmed that both would-be assailants were armed with handguns; they were recovered, loaded, one each, off the bodies. Numerous Pakistani witnesses have confirmed this, and the fact that they pointed these guns at Davis. The next sentence says, "The three men who were killed had not committed any crime either." This may be true in the case of the unfortunate who got run over. But, it is certainly not the case for either of the two dickheads he shot, who were both illegally armed and who, again according to Pakistani witnesses and Pakistani police, had just robbed a Pakistani man at gunpoint moments before. Two paragraphs later, the author says that the US could have waived his diplomatic immunity, but chose not to. Why in the fuck would they? He was a diplomat, legally accredited, and he defended himself. Why in the fuck would they waive his immunity, and cast him to the mercy of a barbaric Pakistani court? And finally, who cares what the fuck his name is? His passport, a legal USG document, is in the name of Raymond Davis, as is the Pakistani Diplomatic Note granting him diplomatic immunity. You are not normally this obtuse, Harry. A shit-stirrer, yes, but obtuse, not usually to this degree. It's simple - a case of good shooting, and unfortunately bad driving by the extraction vehicle.

Come off it, DK, you're basically backing up what the author's saying. There is a technicality as to whether his diplomatic immunity was actually submitted properly given his role, but if, as you say, there are witness confirming that the two men were armed, then they can stick him in court, the witness can confirm this, and he will get off because, and I'll say it again, self-defense is permissible under articles 96, 97 and 100 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The Pakistanis are clearly trying to appease the pitchfork-wielding, baying mob and want to be able to say "we didn't just hand him back to the Americans, a Pakistani court cleared him and our hands were tied".There's nothing obtuse in this article, although it seems to omit some facts that you say you know, that there are witnesses saying that his two assailants were armed or enough evidence to prove that they were. Of course, if you heard that on Fox News it's probably bollocks.If, as you say, he has incontrovertible diplomatic immunity, then I can't see how this even came up.

It sounds like a few legal technicalities and a bit of face saving and he'll be back in Kabul double tapping Taliban before you can say "Bin Laden".Mind you, throw this in the pot and it starts bubbling.

ISLAMABAD: The government’s reluctance to free Raymond Davis is attributed to the fact that the two killed in the Lahore shooting were believed to be (the) intelligence operatives.
“Yes, they belonged to the security establishment….they found the activities of the American official detrimental to our national security,” disclosed a security official.

[Davis Knowlton]

^Love the final quote, Harry. Now the two armed robbers who had just robbed a Pakistani man at gunpoint and had the phone and other stuff they stole from him in their pockets when they were killed were "Pakistani Intelligence operatives". And this is just coming out now? Come on.....

[harrybarracuda]

^Love the final quote, Harry. Now the two armed robbers who had just robbed a Pakistani man at gunpoint and had the phone and other stuff they stole from him in their pockets when they were killed were "Pakistani Intelligence operatives". And this is just coming out now? Come on.....

Who said it's just coming out, DK? It might just have been conveniently ignored by US news sources.

[Bower]

Interesting article (#12) Thanks.
He should be released and Pakistan know this.

[hazz]

It sounds like the american has a good self defence case, as someone said if he had been pakistani it wouldn't even be worth a line in the papers. Don't forget its only ok for Moslems to kill Moslems; which they do with regrettable ruthlessness.

Diplomatic immunity and a diplomatic passport are two entirely separate issues. Its pakistan who grant diplomatic immunity in pakistan not america; so the question really is did pakistan ever accredit the guy and grant him immunity? no different to the saudi prince with the diplomatic passport found guilty of murder in the UK last year.

[Davis Knowlton]

^^It is unfortunate that an innocent Pakistani citizen was killed by the security vehicle. Yes, the driver had diplomatic immunity, got back to the Consulate, and by now has surely left the country. Foreign diplomats have killed American citizens on more than one occasion in the US, in several cases while driving drunk. They have invoked diplomatic immunity, and been released to leave the country. Pakistan is a bit different than New York or Washington. US diplomats have been targeted for assassination in Pakistan in the past, and have been killed there in the past. Thus the need for security personnel like Davis and the driver of the extraction vehicle. There are armed Pakistanis everywhere who wish the US, and other western nations, ill. It is unfortunate, but it is a totally different matter than Ray Davis protecting himself.

^According to several Pakistani news reports, the diplomatic note requesting that Davis be accredited as a diplomat had been submitted to, and approved by, the Pakistani government - not once, but on each of his several assignments to different places in the country over a two-year period.

Pakistan is in violation of international law - period.

[hazz]

^if they have granted him immunity, then they don't have a leg to stand on. Its not like they can remove it.

if the pakistani's don't like this kind of thing happening, then they should be more careful about who they give diplomatic immunity too and perhaps more importantly the nature of the society they have created.

[Davis Knowlton]

^True. Yhe problem is that American diplomats need protection in places like this. The State Department has no capability to provide it. The military has SEALS and Delta which have the appropriate training, but they are too valuable to use on jobs such as this. So, they turn to contractors. Not always the greatest option, but pretty much the only one. And contractors won't go unless thay have at least some kind of protection - limited diplomatic immunity. You can bet your ass that the price of contractors for Pakistan and places like it has just jumped about 500% after this absolutely disgraceful performance by the State Department - if they can even find anyone willing to go at all.

[Bower]

^True. Yhe problem is that American diplomats need protection in places like this. The State Department has no capability to provide it. The military has SEALS and Delta which have the appropriate training, but they are too valuable to use on jobs such as this. So, they turn to contractors. Not always the greatest option, but pretty much the only one. And contractors won't go unless thay have at least some kind of protection - limited diplomatic immunity. You can bet your ass that the price of contractors for Pakistan and places like it has just jumped about 500% after this absolutely disgraceful performance by the State Department - if they can even find anyone willing to go at all.

'jobs such as this' what exactly was this job ? you seem to have some idea.
I would be interested in his moves over the previous 48hrs. Its interesting why the Pakistanis wont hand him over.

His location is known, lets have an international incident and let those SEALS or a Delta force get him out.