Civil War is being Incited in Pakistan - a new murderous phase begins

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In Pakistan, Islamic hard-liners expanding their grip on society

The killing of a governor opposed to the nation's blasphemy law, and the warm reception for his accused killer, has exposed Islamic fundamentalists' growing sway over the nation.

By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times

January 21, 2011

Pakistanis chant slogans as they gather to show their support outside the Rawalpindi home of Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, who is accused of killing Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer. (Aamir Qureshi, AFP/Getty Images / January 21, 2011)



Reporting from Rawalpindi, Pakistan
 
Above a dank, darkened teahouse pungent with the aroma of green chili peppers, a bright blue banner depicts a neighborhood cleric, Qari Hanif Qureshi, declaring: "Anyone opposing laws protecting the sanctity of the prophet Muhammad is condemned!"

Such dire exhortations from local imams are embraced by millions of impoverished Pakistanis scraping by in squalid, dust-choked city neighborhoods and mud-hut settlements.

Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, a 26-year-old police commando assigned to guard Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer, says Qureshi's preachings inspired him to assassinate Taseer on Jan. 4. And on a recent afternoon inside the teahouse, another Qureshi follower, Muhammad Zahir, said he was equally moved.

"If I were there, I would have done the same thing," says Zahir, 26, scooping up boiled lentils with a piece of bread. "Qadri has brought honor upon his family. He's a hero now."

The killing, carried out by a man who saw Taseer as an apostate for opposing Pakistan's blasphemy law, has exposed the rising influence that Islamic fundamentalism has over Pakistani society, a mind-set that increasingly radicalizes the nuclear-armed nation, breeds intolerance and further weakens Islamabad's feeble civilian government.

Led by clerics at the helm of the country's religious political parties and its hard-line mosques and madrasas, the extremists demonstrated their reach after Taseer was assassinated in an upscale neighborhood of Islamabad. Days later, fundamentalist clerics rallied more than 40,000 people on the streets of Karachi in support of Qadri. A day earlier in Qadri's Rawalpindi neighborhood, at least 4,000 people had gathered in front of the accused assassin's house, chanting, "Salute to your bravery, Mumtaz!"

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-religion-20110121,0,3266594.story

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Mass Protests in North Waziristan Against US Drone Strikes

Thousands of Tribesmen Protest Continued Killings

by Jason Ditz, January 21, 2011

There was a general strike in the town of Miramshah in North Waziristan Agency today, as thousands of protesting tribesmen took to the streets to protest the continued US drone strikes against the region.

Shopkeepers closed their stores, tribesmen and religious leaders rallied with students, and speakers condemned the attacks, noting that they are killing large numbers of innocent civilians.

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http://news.antiwar.com/2011/01/21/mass-protests-in-north-waziristan-against-us-drone-strikes/

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ASIA NEWS JANUARY 21, 2011


Setbacks Plague U.S. Aid to Pakistan    

By TOM WRIGHT


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—A massive U.S. aid program that has made Pakistan the world's second-largest recipient of American economic and development assistance is facing serious challenges, people involved in the effort say.

The ambitious civilian-aid program is intended in part to bolster support for the U.S. in the volatile and strategically vital nation. But a host of problems on the ground are hampering the initiative.

• A push to give more money directly to local organizations and the Pakistani government has been slowed by concerns about the capacity of local groups to properly handle the funds.

• Some international groups have balked at new requirements, such as prominently displaying U.S. government logos on food shipments, and have pulled out of U.S. government programs.

• Anti-American sentiment in the nation continues to flourish despite the uptick in spending, in part because of American drone attacks on tribal regions. A poll of Pakistanis in July by the Washington-based Pew Research Center showed that two-thirds of respondents considered the U.S. an enemy.

"Drone strikes cannot be justified because civilians are also killed in them, which further aggravates a tense situation," said Bacha Khan, a refugee from Bajaur, a tribal region along the Afghan border where the Pakistani army is fighting Taliban militants.

Due to various problems, in the year ended Sept. 30, the U.S. spent only about two-thirds of the roughly $1.2 billion appropriated by Congress.

U.S. officials acknowledge difficulties distributing so much money, but say the shift in direction is needed. "Our goal here is to help the [Pakistani] government improve its capacity to deliver key public services," says senior State Department official Robin Raphel, U.S. Coordinator for Economic and Development Assistance in Pakistan. "The object of the program is quality, not to push money out of the door."

The U.S. is eager to win support from ordinary Pakistanis to boost its prospects in the war in neighboring Afghanistan and to counter the rise of Islamic extremism in Pakistan itself, a trend that officials say directly threatens America.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703583404576080113980804354.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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US not serious about tackling LeT: Ex-CIA

Yashwant Raj, Hindustan Times
Washington, January 22, 2011  Email to Author

First Published: 00:58 IST(22/1/2011)

The US has not shown the same seriousness of intent in going after Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the Pakistan-based terrorist group responsible for the Mumbai attacks in 2009, as it has after Al Qaeda despite the outfit’s growing reach and firepower. “We in the US have been slow to see this problem,” Bruce Riedel told Hindustan Times in an exclusive interview on Thursday, adding, “(this focus on Al Qaeda and not on LeT) is not working, it’s not working at all.”  “Are we doing enough?” asked Riedel, a former CIA officer who gave President Barack Obama the bad news that the US was losing the war in Afghanistan. “Look at the evidence before us.”

“Two years after Mumbai, Hafeez Saeed (the Lashkar chief) walks free and his campus outside of Lahore is bustling with activity,” said he. That’s despite the fact that Americans were killed in the Mumbai attacks. In fact, he stressed, Americans – especially Jewish Americans – were targeted.

Riedel’s review of the Afghanistan war – at Obama’s invitation – changed the course of US engagement in the region. He argued, successfully, that to sort Afghanistan, the US must sort Pakistan too.

The former spymaster and a front ranking expert on South Asia has now written a book, inspired by the review he did for Obama, exploring America’s relationship with Pakistan.

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http://www.hindustantimes.com/US-not-serious-about-tackling-LeT-Ex-CIA/Article1-653220.aspx

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Pakistani Taliban leader targeted by U.S. has long, ruthless record

By Tim Lister, CNN

The U.S. says Qari Hussain Mehsud planned a suicide bombing that killed over 50 people in Quetta in September.


STORY HIGHLIGHTS

-Qari Hussain Mehsud's notoriety includes allegedly training children as suicide bombers

-A tape released after the Times Square bomb attempt purportedly featured his voice

-The Pakistani government is offering a $600,000 reward for his capture


(CNN) -- Pakistani Taliban leader Qari Hussain Mehsud, whose notoriety includes allegedly recruiting children as suicide bombers, is being targeted by the United States, the State Department announced Thursday.

"Widely considered to be the deadliest of all TTP's commanders, Hussain and the TTP (Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan) have taken responsibility for many lethal suicide bombings throughout Pakistan," the State Department said in a news release on Qari Hussain. The released cited a string of such attacks, including a blast last September that killed at least 54 people at a rally in Quetta and a car bombing the same month that killed at least 17 people -- including four children -- in Lakki Marwat.

Even among militant groups known for brutal violence, Qari Hussain Mehsud has a notorious reputation. He is alleged to have recruited dozens of Pakistani children as suicide bombers (a form of attack in which he reportedly is an expert trainer) and has boasted of personally beheading enemies. After the abortive Times Square bombing in New York last year, his voice was purportedly on the audio tape that claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the TTP.

On several occasions, Pakistani officials have claimed that he has been killed. No evidence has ever been presented, and it seems that Qari Hussain is still somewhere in the rugged mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border -- most likely in North Waziristan.

He is well connected in jihadist circles. He is a cousin of the current leader of the TTP, Hakimullah Mehsud (himself a target of US drone attacks), and terrorism analysts believe he has good contacts with other groups active in the region. Not that those contacts have always been cordial -- Pakistani media reported in 2008 a feud over the fate of a Polish geologist who was being held by Qari Hussain's group. Rather than hand him over to another faction, they slit his throat.

Qari Hussein comes from the Mehsud tribe, which is prominent in Waziristan and includes several other leading figures in the Pakistan Taliban. But he also spent time as a boy in Karachi, attending a hard-line Sunni "madrassa" or religious school.

A Pakistani journalist, Tahir Ali, wrote last year of a meeting with Qari Hussain, who claimed to have been active in militant groups since boyhood. Ali quoted him as saying: "I was very young when I joined Lashkar i Jhangvi and actively took part in anti-Shia activities; I also remained for a short time with Ilyas Kashmiri group ... later on I focused on jihad in Waziristan."

Both Lashkar and the Ilyas Kashmiri group are militant anti-Shia groups involved in terrorism in Pakistan and Indian Kashmir. Ilyas Kashmiri has repeatedly threatened to export terror attacks to Europe.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/01/20/pakistan.taliban.leader.targeted/index.html

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US' blacklisting of Pak Taliban 'suicide boss' Qari Hussain shows he may still be alive


Lahore, Jan 22: The United States' decision to blacklist Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Qari Hussain has cast serious doubts over an earlier claim made by its intelligence sleuths that he was killed in an October 7, 2010 drone strike in North Waziristan.


"The Secretary of State has designated Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Qari Hussain under E.O. 13224, which targets terrorists and their supporters. This action will help stem the flow of finances to Hussain by blocking all property subject to U.S. jurisdiction in which Hussain has an interest and prohibiting all transactions by U.S. persons with Hussain," the US Department of State said in a press release on Thursday.

"Qari Hussain is one of TTP's top lieutenants and also serves as the trainer and organizer of the group's suicide bombers... Widely considered to be the deadliest of all TTP's commanders, Hussain and the TTP have taken responsibility for many lethal suicide bombings throughout Pakistan," it added.

It is noteworthy that the State Department's statement has used 'present tense' while framing charges against Hussain, hence giving credence to the possibility that the master trainer of suicide bombers may still be alive.

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http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-130274.html

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South Asia
Jan 25, 2011 
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MA25Df03.html 
   
Army poised over peace broker's fate


By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - News of the killing of Sultan Ameer Tarar, alias Colonel Imam, a legendary Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI) official, has stunned decision-makers in Pakistan and raised questions about the circumstances of his death.

Imam, 67, was apparently killed on Saturday by his kidnappers in the North Waziristan tribal area where he had been held since being seized in March last year while on a backchannel mission to get militants to agree to a ceasefire with security forces.

Imam spent 10 years in the ISI's Afghan cell during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and after retirement he worked for the ISI in various capacities for handling the Taliban.

Pakistani television channels flashed the news of Imam being shot dead on Saturday evening. Some sources then maintained he had not been killed but had died of a heart attack. Others pointed to the fact that the body had not been seen, and that no group had claimed responsibility; militants have a tradition of leaving the body of a "spy" on a road and claiming responsibility.

Whatever the circumstances of Imam's killing - assuming he is dead - they could be a major turning point and even lead to Pakistan finally bowing to the demands of the United States to launch an all-out military offensive in North Waziristan against militants.

On Sunday morning, Imam's family was still claiming that reports of Imam's death were nothing but rumors - and there might be some justification for this belief.

Late last week, Imam spoke to family members on the phone. Militants, too, spoke to the family and were very respectful. "Colonel Imam is a respected elder to us. We have put certain demands to the government. It is our compulsion that as long as our demands are not fulfilled, we cannot release him. Try to understand our position. Otherwise, he is at home. He is getting all medicine and care," the militants said. Imam also sounded as if he was comfortable and in a friendly environment.

He was abducted by a group of Punjabi militants in March 2010 along with a British journalist, Asad Qureshi, and another former ISI official, Khalid Khawaja, who was subsequently killed.

Most militant groups denounced the abduction. Taliban leader Mullah Omar sent a message to the militants calling for their release. However, the ringleader, Ali Imran alias Usman Punjabi, would not listen and killed Khawaja. Qureshi was released, allegedly after paying a huge ransom. On what to do with Imam, the militants were divided in two groups. Those led by Sabir Mehsud killed Usman Punjabi along with five of his accomplices. The issue was then brought to the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP - Pakistan Taliban) Hakimullah Mehsud, who took Imam into his custody and executed Sabir Mehsud for killing Usman Punjabi.

Since then, the Pakistani security forces have tried to establish a channel of communication with Mehsud for the release of Imam. The mediator has been Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil, a chief of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen. Khalil took guarantees on behalf of the militants that Imam would not be killed.

Imam was an officer in the army and a former member of the Special Service Group and he also served as consul general in the western Afghan city of Herat during the mujahideen government in the early 1990s until the end of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001.
 
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http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MA25Df03.html

 

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Striking Back at the US

Relatives of Pakistani Drone Victims to Sue CIA

By Hasnain Kazim in Islamabad




A Jan. 5 demonstration in Peshawar against US drone attacks: A group of victims' relatives is suing the US government and the CIA.

January 23, 2011

Almost every day, people in the Pakistani region of Waziristan are killed or seriously injured by drone attacks carried out by the CIA. Now a group of victims' relatives is standing up to Washington -- by suing the US government.

An eye and both legs: That was the price that 17-year-old Sadaullah Wazir paid for living in a part of the world that is deemed a "terrorist haven" and that has been a target for US drones over the past few years. Since Barack Obama became US president, these attacks have become increasingly frequent. The Pakistani newspapers now report daily on those killed and injured in the tribal areas in the west of the country.



"War is hell," the American Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman said more than a century ago. And Sadaullah Wazir certainly ended up in hell, despite never having sought out a war, nor having fought in a single battle. The war came to him on Sept. 7, 2009, as he was sitting in front of his family home in the village of Machikhel, in northern Waziristan.
On that day, a drone flew over the village. Wazir was used to the sound; he had spotted the aircraft every few days in the sky. It was an evening during the fasting month of Ramadan, and most of the members of his family had gathered inside the house for prayers. After the prayers, they were to break the fast together.

Wazir was enjoying the last rays of sunshine and stayed outside. Suddenly there was a whoosh and a drone fired a rocket that hit Wazir's house. The young man jumped up in an attempt to help his family when the building collapsed. Wazir was just at the entrance. A wall collapsed on him and severed his legs, and a splinter tore into his eye. Two uncles and a cousin died in the inferno.

War Is Always a Propaganda War

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http://uruknet.info/?p=m74206&hd=&size=1&l=e



 

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After Protests, US Drones Kill 13 Pakistanis

All 13 'Suspects' Reportedly Local Tribesmen


by Jason Ditz

January 23, 2011

With mass protests against the US killings continuing through the weekend, US drones once again launched multiple attacks on the North Waziristan Agency, killing at least 13 "suspects," all of whom Pakistani officials identified as local tribesmen.

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http://uruknet.info/?p=m74228&hd=&size=1&l=e

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Taliban mentor dies in captivity in Pakistan


Published January 24, 2011
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD –  A former Pakistani spy who helped the Taliban rise to power in Afghanistan has died in militant captivity 10 months after he was seized in northwest Pakistan, a top official said Monday.

Sultan Amir Tarar, who as an American ally against Soviet rule in Afghanistan in the 1980s trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, died of a heart attack while in custody, said Tariq Hayat, the most senior government representative in the tribal regions.

Tarar was kidnapped along with a British TV journalist who was released in September and another former spy, Khalid Khawaja, who was executed by his captors in April. It is unclear why the two men traveled to the northwest, but they may have been acting as guides to the reporter.

Tarar's life personified some of the deep complexities of U.S. and Pakistani policies toward insurgents in the region.

His death in militant captivity was also shrouded in uncertainty, but appeared to indicate the extent to which some insurgents in the northwest had abandoned any loyalties to Pakistani intelligence agencies that nurtured an earlier generation of fighters.

Tarar, who was better known as Col. Imam and usually seen wearing a white turban and army camouflage jacket, played a major role in funneling Pakistani support and training to Afghans fighting Soviet rule in the 1980s, a push in large part financed by the CIA.

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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/01/24/taliban-mentor-dies-captivity-pakistan/?test=latestnews

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The Taliban in Pakistan: We've got a bigger problem now

By Suroosh Alvi, VBS.TV founder and executive producer
January 26, 2011 11:31 a.m. EST

Inside Pakistan's downward spiral (VIDEO)

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/01/25/vbs.taliban.pakistan/index.html



STORY HIGHLIGHTS

-VBS goes to Pakistan, and finds many people angry at U.S., Western policies

-Pakistani journalist: "In Pashtun society, taking revenge is very important"

-Taliban, al Qaeda in Pakistan have abandoned imposing strict Islamic law, VBS finds


Editor's Note: The staff at CNN.com has recently been intrigued by the journalism of Vice, an independent media company and Web site based in Brooklyn, New York. VBS.TV is Vice's broadband television network. The reports, which are produced solely by Vice, reflect a very transparent approach to journalism, where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process. We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers.

Brooklyn, New York (VBS.TV) -- In a recent trip to Pakistan to report on the recent spike in the region's violence and bloodshed, I heard over and over the same sentiment from people on the ground; America's war on terror is falling flat on its face.

The military conflict in neighboring Afghanistan, repeatedly cited by locals, sends a constant flood of guns, refugees, militants and heroin into Pakistan.

Heroin is now actually cheaper than hashish in cities such as Lahore. The Kalashnikov culture, the foundation of which was laid 30 years ago when the CIA financed the mujahedeen, is all-consuming. According to the Pakistanis I spoke to, it's all taken a devastating toll on the country and created the next generation of militants at the same time.

In Peshawar, I met with Rahimullah Yusufzai, the last person to interview Osama bin Laden and one of Pakistan's most respected journalists.

He emphasized that much of the resulting anti-Western sentiment in the country is because of anger directed at American foreign policy.



"People have suffered, and they are willing to take revenge," he said. "All villages have been attacked, women and children have been killed. So the Taliban can very easily motivate these families to supply suicide bombers."

Today's anti-West tide in Pakistan boils down to reactivity, retaliation and revenge.

"In Pashtun society, taking revenge is very important," Yusufzai said. "You know, there is a saying in Pashto: 'Even if you take revenge after 100 years, it's not too late.' And most of these I believe are retaliation attacks. Suicide bombings and the use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are the two most effective means of weaponry that the militants can use in this part of the world."

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http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/01/25/vbs.taliban.pakistan/index.html

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'US embassy official Blackwater agent'


Fri Jan 28, 2011 11:15AM


People look at the blood stains in a Lahore street after the American cosular killed two Pakistanis on January 27, 2011.

Pakistani media say the US embassy official charged with the murder of two Pakistani citizens is an agent for the notorious security firm, Blackwater.

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http://presstv.com/detail/162383.html

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US ramps up for proxy war against Pakistan

Published: January 30, 2011


BY MICHAEL HUGHES


The US has sought to emasculate its erratic puppet in Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, by bolstering his political opponents because Karzai has deviated from the master plot by unilaterally engaging with the Taliban and strengthening ties with Iran and Russia.

As the Asia Time’s M K Bhadrakumar put it, “Washington finds Karzai increasingly acting as an Afghan nationalist rather than as a US surrogate.”

Karzai dispatched a peace council recently led by Burhanuddin Rabbani to begin negotiations with Pakistani officials that could lead to a potential power-sharing arrangement in Kabul with Taliban elements deemed irreconcilable by the US and its regional agenda.

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http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/International/30-Jan-2011/US-ramps-up-for-proxy-war-against-Pakistan?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online%2FInternational+%28The+Nation+%3A+International+News%29

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South Asia
Feb 5, 2011 
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MB05Df01.html   

 
Pakistan adds zero to huge debt burden

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider

KARACHI - The total debt and liabilities of Pakistan have reached a record 10 trillion rupees (US$117 billion), as the government violated almost all the limits on borrowing imposed in the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act.

Every Pakistani owes more than 57,000 rupees per head to foreign and domestic lenders, compared with 22,000 rupees per head when the present government took over in 2008.

The country this year has to spend almost 900 billion rupees on debt servicing alone, which is five times more than the revised federal development budget. The financing of a large fiscal deficit is forcing the government to rely on borrowing from the central bank and commercial banks, triggering inflation and squeezing the private sector.

Last week, Islamabad sought United States intervention for restoration of the suspended US$11.3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout program on assurance of implementing the economic reforms agenda.

Local analysts argue that the economy has been dragged to the brink where the nation cannot do away with loans, as there is still no plan in the cards for retiring the debt burden - though the government does have a plan for securing more loans from international lenders.

Pakistan's debt-servicing obligations have been squeezing resources meant for development projects, particularly in the social sector. Over 75% of the 170 million population, particularly in rural areas, live at the highest deprivation level and lowest development level.

Total debts and liabilities touched 10 trillion rupees in September, as the government borrowed more than 5 trillion rupees from domestic sources and about the same amount from international lenders. The government borrowed 271 billion rupees from the IMF for balance of payments support and incurred an exchange loss of 200 billion rupees on the external debt portfolio because of the rupee's depreciation against the US dollar.

The Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act of 2005 requires the federal government to take measures to reduce total public debt and maintain it within prudent limits. The government has violated all the five restrictions prescribed under the act.

"The total public debt stood at Rs8.894 trillion as of June 30, 2010, an increase of Rs1.265 billion or 16.6 per cent higher than the debt stock at the end of last fiscal year,” Dawn reported, citing a mandatory debt policy statement for 2010-11 released by the Ministry of Finance this week. "Unless corrective measures on the fiscal and external fronts are adopted and properly implemented, the debt situation of Pakistan may remain vulnerable in the near term," the statement said.

The country's total registered population was 175 million, which means each individual effectively owes up to 57,057 rupees, according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics' population clock as of February 1. That is a huge burden in a country where per capita income last year was the equivalent of $1,040, or 89,000 rupees per year, and more than 40% of the population live well below poverty line

The debt policy statement warns that high public debt can adversely affect capital accumulation and growth via higher long-term interest rates, higher future distortionary taxation, inflation, and greater uncertainty about prospects and policies.

"Sharp rupee depreciation and large budget deficits massively added to the debt stock," The Express Tribune reported Ashfaque H Khan, a former debt director general, as saying.

The IMF has asked Pakistan to act swiftly to reduce its widening budget deficit, for which the fund has yet to come up with an estimate, although some analysts forecast that it will widen to 8% of economic output, as against the 4.7% revised target for the fiscal year that ends in June 2011.
 
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http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MB05Df01.html

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12363924

4 February 2011 Last updated at 11:37 GMT

Pakistanis flee army offensive near Afghan border

At least 20,000 people have fled fierce fighting between troops and militants in the Pakistani tribal region of Mohmand, officials and witnesses say.

Many of the displaced are sheltering in temporary camps, the authorities add.

Troops have been using helicopter gunships and heavy weapons to pound suspected militant positions for a week, according to residents.

Mohmand, on the border with Afghanistan, has long served as a sanctuary for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

"We are targeting militant hideouts there," military spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas confirmed.

The army told the BBC that 60 to 70 militants had been killed in what it calls a search and clearance operation.

There is no independent confirmation of the casualty figures - independent media have no access to the area.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12363924

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February 8, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.com/lindorff02082011.html

A CounterPunch Special Report

The Deepening Mystery of Raymond Davis and Two Slain Pakistani Motorcyclists


By DAVE LINDORFF

The mystery of American Raymond A. Davis, currently imprisoned in the custody of local police in Lahore, Pakistan and charged with the Jan. 27 murder of two young men, whom he allegedly shot eight times with pinpoint accuracy through his car windshield, is growing increasingly murky. Also growing is the anger among Pakistanis that the US is trying to spring him from a Punjab jail by claiming diplomatic immunity. On Feb. 4, there were massive demonstrations, especially in Lahore, demanding that Davis be held for trial, an indication of the level of public anger at talk of granting him immunity.

Davis (whose identity was first denied and later confirmed by the US Embassy in Islamabad), and the embassy have claimed that he was hired as an employee of a US security company called Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, which was said to be located at 5100 North Lane in Orlando, Florida. Business cards for Hyperion were found on Davis by arresting officers.

However CounterPunch has investigated and discovered the following information:

First, there is not and never has been any such company located at the 5100 North Lane address. It is only an empty storefront, with empty shelves along one wall and an empty counter on the opposite wall, with just a lone used Coke cup sitting on it. A leasing agency sign is on the window.  A receptionist at the IB Green & Associates rental agency located in Leesburg, Florida, said that her agency, which handles the property, part of a desolate-looking strip mall of mostly empty storefronts, has never leased to a Hyperion Protective Consultants. She added, “In fact, until recently, we had for several years occupied that address ourselves.”

The Florida Secretary of State’s office, meanwhile, which requires all Florida companies, including LLSs  (limited liability partnerships), to register, has no record, current or lapsed, of a Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, and there is only one company with the name Hyperion registered at all in the state. It is Hyperion Communications, a company based in W. Palm Beach, that has no connection with Davis or with security-related activities.

The non-existent Hyperion Protective Consultants does have a website (www.hyperion-protective.com), but one of the phone numbers listed doesn’t work, an 800 number produces a recorded answer offering information about how to deal with or fend off bank foreclosures, and a third number with an Orlando exchange goes to a recording giving Hyperion’s corporate name and asking the caller to leave a message. Efforts to contact anyone on that line were unsuccessful. The local phone company says there is no public listing for Hyperion Protective Consultants--a rather unusual situation for a legitimate business operation.

Pakistani journalists have been speculating that Davis is either a CIA agent or is working as a contractor for some private mercenary firm--possibly Xe, the reincarnation of Blackwater. They are not alone in their suspicions. Jeff Stein, writing in the Washington Post on January 27, suggested after interviewing Fred Burton, a veteran of the State Department’s counter-terrorism Security Service, that Davis may have been involved in intelligence activity, either as a CIA employee under embassy cover or as a contract worker at the time of the shootings. Burton, who currently works with Stratfor, an Austin, TX-based “global intelligence” firm,  even speculates that the shootings may have been a “spy meeting gone awry,”  and not, as US Embassy and State Department officials are claiming, a case of an attempted robbery or car-jacking.

Even the information about what actually transpired is sketchy at this point. American media reports have Davis driving in Mozang, a busy commercial section of Lahore, and being approached by two threatening men on motorcycles. The US says he fired in self-defense, through his windshield with his Beretta pistol, remarkably hitting both men four times and killing both. He then exited his car and photographed both victims with his cell phone, before being arrested by local Lahore police. Davis, 36, reportedly a former Special Forces officer, was promptly jailed on two counts of murder, and despite protests by the US Embassy and the State Department that he  is a “consular official” responsible for “security,” he continues to be held pending trial.

What has not been reported in the US media, but which reporter Shaukat Qadir of the Pakistani Express Tribune, says has been stated by Lahore police authorities, is that the two dead motorcyclists were each shot two times, “probably the fatal shots,” in the back by Davis. They were also both shot twice from the front. Such ballistics don’t mesh nicely with a protestation of self-defense.

Also left unmentioned in the US media is what else was found in Davis’ possession. Lahore police say that in addition to the Beretta he was still holding, and three cell phones retrieved from his pockets, they found a loaded Glock pistol in his car, along with three full magazines, and a “small telescope.”  Again, heavy arms for a consular security officer not even in the act of guarding any embassy personnel, and what’s with the telescope?  Also unmentioned in US accounts: his car was not an embassy vehicle, but was a local rental car.

American news reports say that a “consular vehicle” sped to Davis’ aid after the shooting incident and killed another motorcyclist enroute, before speeding away. The driver of that car is being sought by Lahore prosecutors but has not been identified or produced by US Embassy officials. According to Lahore police, however, the car in question, rather than coming to Davis’s aid, actually had been accompanying Davis’s sedan, and when the shooting happened, it “sped away,” killing the third motorcyclist as it raced off. Again a substantially different story that raises more questions about what this drive into the Mozang district was all about.

Davis has so far not said why he was driving, heavily armed, without anyone else in his vehicle, in a private rental car in a business section of Lahore where foreign embassy staff would not normally be seen. He is reportedly remaining silent and is leaving all statements to the US Embassy.

The US claim that Davis has diplomatic immunity hinges first and foremost on whether he is actually a “functionary” of the consulate.  According to Lahore police investigators, he was arrested carrying a regular US passport, which had a business visa, not a diplomatic visa. The US reportedly only later supplied a diplomatic passport carrying a diplomatic visa that had been obtained not in the US before his departure, but in Islamabad, the country’s capital.

(Note: It is not unusual, though it is not publicly advertised, for the US State Department to issue duplicate passports to certain Americans. When I was working for Business Week magazine in Hong Kong in the early 1990s, and was dispatched often into China on reporting assignments, my bureau chief advised me that I could take a letter signed by her to the US Consulate in Hong Kong and request a second passport. One would be used exclusively to enter China posing as a tourist. The other would be used for going in officially as a journalist. The reason for this subterfuge, which was supported by the State Department, was that  once Chinese visa officials have spotted a Chinese “journalist” visa stamped in a passport, they would never again allow that person to enter the country without first obtaining such a visa. The problem is that a journalist visa places strict limits on a reporter’s independent travel and access to sources. As a tourist, however, the same reporter could – illegally -- travel freely and report without being accompanied by meddling foreign affairs office “handlers.”)

Considerable US pressure is currently being brought to bear on the Pakistani national government to hand over Davis to the US, and the country’s Interior Minister yesterday issued a statement accepting that Davis was a consular official as claimed by the US.  But Punjab state authorities are not cooperating, and so far the national government is saying it is up to local authorities and the courts to decide whether his alleged crime of murder would, even if he is a legitimate consular employee, override a claim of diplomatic immunity.

Under Pakistani law, only actual consular functionaries, not service workers at embassy and consulate, have diplomatic status. Furthermore, no immunity would apply in the case of “serious” crimes--and certainly murder is as serious as it gets

MORE
http://www.counterpunch.com/lindorff02082011.html

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US Suspending High Level Contacts With Pakistan Over Murder Case

Rising Tensions Put Three-Way DC Talks in Doubt

by Jason Ditz, February 08, 2011


Though such reports had been rejected over the weekend, US officials are now confirming that the Obama Administration is suspending most of its high level contacts with the Pakistani government to “punish” them for the continued detention of a consulate employee on a double murder charge.

MORE

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/08/us-suspending-high-level-contacts-with-pakistan-over-murder-case/

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US Terror Campaign in Pakistan?
What was Raymond Davis Shooting for in Lahore?

by Dave Lindorff



This Can't Be Happening , February 9, 2011



The mystery surrounding Raymond A. Davis, the American former Special Forces operative jailed in Lahore, Pakistan for the murder of two young motorcyclists, and his funky "security" company, Hyperion-Protective Consultants LLC, in the US continues to grow.

When Davis was arrested in the immediate aftermath of the double slaying in a busy business section of Lahore, after he had fatally shot two men in the back, claiming that he feared they might be threatening to rob him, police found business cards on him for a security company called Hyperion-Protective Consultants LLC, which listed as its address 5100 North Lane, Orlando, Florida.

A website for the company gave the same address, and listed the manager as a Gerald Richardson.

An investigation into the company done for Counterpunch Magazine that was published on Tuesday, disclosed that the address was actually for a vacant storefront in a run-down and almost completely empty strip mall in Orlando called North Lane Plaza. The 5100 shop was completely empty and barren, save for an empty Coke glass on a vacant counter.

Now Tom Johnson, executive of a property company called IB Green, owner of the strip mall property, says that the 5100 address was rented by a man named Gerald Richardson, who used it to sell clothing. "We made him move out in December 2009 for nonpayment of rent," he says. Johnson recalls that at one point when Richardson was leasing the space for his clothing store, he told him, "Oh, I have another company called Hyperion which might get mail there."

Hyperion-Protective Consultants LLC, as reported in the Counterpunch article, is not registered with the Florida Secretary of State’s office, although it still lists the vacant 5100 North Lane, Orlando address as its headquarters on the company website, which also provides an email address for Richardson, who is described as the company’s "manager and chief researcher." (Efforts to reach Richardson via his email and by leaving a message on the one functioning number listed on the website have gone unanswered.)

But there are other mysteries here, too, regarding Davis (whose name does not appear on the Hyperion-Protective website), and regarding Hyperion.

Just a security guy? Guns, shells, clips, multiple cell phones and batteries all found in Davis's possession by police
 
MORE

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/450

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Pakistan: Another "Important Ally" at Risk?

US Double Standards Over Diplomat Killing

By Finian Cunningham
 
Global Research, February 9, 2011

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23164


The US has threatened to cut off a multi-billion-dollar aid package to Pakistan if an American diplomat being held on murder charges is not immediately released from custody.

The case has sparked widespread public fury across Pakistan, with accusations that it is yet another example of American personnel having a “licence to kill” in their country. Also, the rapid diplomatic intervention by senior US officials in the case, which has now raised the threat of immediate suspension of aid from Washington to Islamabad, is in stark contrast to the refusal by the US government to cut off similar aid flows to the Mubarak regime in Egypt where more than 300 civilians in pro-democracy protests have been killed by state forces.

Thirty-six-year-old Raymond Allen Davis, was arrested on 27 January amid furious scenes after he apparently shot dead two Pakistani men riding on a motorbike in the busy streets of Lahore, the main city in Punjab Province.

MORE

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23164

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 Pakistan Bomber Kills 31

Taliban take credit for blast at military training grounds

Posted Feb 10, 2011 8:59 AM CST 



(AP) – A suicide bomber linked to the Pakistani Taliban attacked soldiers during morning exercises at an army training camp in the northwest today, killing 31 troops and wounding 42 others. There were conflicting accounts about the identity of the bomber: An examination of the body parts at the scene indicated the bomber was a teenage boy, which is a common finding in suicide bombings in Pakistan, said police. The army also confirmed he was a teenager in a school uniform. But the Pakistani Taliban claimed he was a soldier at the camp in Mardan town who volunteered "to sacrifice his life for Islam."


"We accepted his offer and told him to target his fellow soldiers in Mardan," says a Taliban spokesman. Former army soldiers have been suspected in attacks in Pakistan, but a suicide bombing by an active duty soldier would be rare, if not unheard of. The bombing was one of the worst attacks on security forces in recent months. Pakistan also test-fired a cruise missile today, a show of strength on the same day it announced it would restart peace talks with India.

MORE

http://www.newser.com/story/111732/pakistan-bomber-kills-31.html

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Pakistan: Former spymaster warns against handing over US murder suspect

2/9/11

               
(AKI) - Former army officers will take action against the Pakistani government if it releases a US diplomat who is suspected of murder and espionage, ex-intelligence services chief and general Hamid Gul warned on Wednesday.

“If the government shows any softness in the case of Raymond Davis, former army officers would play their role in the defence of the national interest, " Gul told a crowd of approximately 200 men and women in Islamabad.


"Enough is enough! Americans killed our men and yet our government is apologetic," Gul said.


“We don’t want any hostilities with the United States of America but we warned Americans that do not test our nerves too much,” retired General Hamid Gul maintained.


The issue of Davis, an American employee of the US diplomatic mission in Pakistan has become a bone of contention between Pakistan and the United States of America.

MORE

http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Aki/English/Politics/Pakistan-Former-spymaster-warns-against-handing-over-US-murder-suspect_311659546065.html

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Video reveals US diplomat's Pakistan police encounter

Mobile phone clip of Raymond Davis, who shot dead two men in Lahore,
deepens mystery about his US embassy role


Associated Press in Islamabad guardian.co.uk,

Thursday 10 February 2011 15.50 GMT

HERE

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/10/us-diplomat-video-footage-pakistan

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Pakistani Police: U.S. Man Committed 'Murder'


Published February 11, 2011 | Associated Press

Jan. 28: A U.S. consulate employee is escorted by police and officials out of court after facing a judge in Lahore.


LAHORE, Pakistan -- Pakistani police alleged Friday that an American held in a pair of shootings committed "cold-blooded murder," while a judge ordered the man's detention extended for 14 days in a local jail and told the Pakistani government to clarify if he has diplomatic immunity.

The police claims and extended detention are likely to further inflame tensions over the case between the U.S. and Pakistan, whose always-uneasy partnership is considered key to ending the war in Afghanistan.

The U.S. says the American, 36-year-old Raymond Allen Davis, shot two Pakistanis on Jan. 27 because they were trying to rob him in the eastern city of Lahore. Washington insists his detention is illegal under international agreements covering diplomats because he was a U.S. Embassy staffer, and American officials have begun curbing diplomatic contacts and threatening to cut off billions in aid to Pakistan if he is not freed.

Pakistani leaders -- loathe to incur a backlash in a public already rife with anti-U.S. sentiment -- have for days avoided making definitive statements on Davis' legal status, instead saying the issue is up to the courts. The fact that rival political parties control the federal government and the government of Punjab province, where any trial would be held, is further complicating the Pakistani response.

On Friday morning, a judge ordered that Davis be taken from police custody and held in a local jail for two more weeks. In response to defense requests, he also ordered that the government tell the court in the coming days whether the American has diplomatic immunity.

Later in the day, Lahore police chief Aslam Tareen declared that a police investigation into the shootings determined Davis was not defending himself.

"It was an intentional and cold blooded murder," Tareen told a news conference.

The police chief said Davis told interrogators that one of the Pakistani men had pointed his pistol at him.

However, Tareen said the slain man's pistol had been examined and officers found that all the bullets were in the magazine and no bullet was found in the chamber. Police also determined that the American shot and killed the second Pakistani as he tried to flee, hitting him in the back, Tareen said.

Tareen's remarks left open the possibility that the man with the empty pistol had still pointed the gun at the American. The police chief said the issue of diplomatic immunity was a government matter but that the police have sent a preliminary charge sheet recommending Davis face a murder trial.

MORE

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/11/pakistan-shooter-didnt-act-self-defense/?test=latestnews

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Lahore Police: Forensics Show US Official’s Attacks ‘Cold-Blooded Murder’

Consulate Employee 'Kept Shooting Even When One Was Running Away'

by Jason Ditz, February 11, 2011

Lahore police have issued their findings in the increasingly controversial case of US consulate employee Raymond Davis’ killings of two Pakistanis on the streets of Lahore, something Davis maintained was self defense.

MORE

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/11/lahore-police-forensics-show-us-officials-attacks-cold-blooded-murder/

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February 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/11/us/politics/AP-US-US-Pakistan.html?_r=1&ref=aponline


Court Issues Warrant for Musharraf



By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:35 a.m. EST on February 12, 2011

ISLAMABAD (AP) — An anti-terrorism court judge issued an arrest warrant Saturday for former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf in connection with the 2007 assassination of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, state-run television reported.

The warrant is the latest legal trouble to face the retired general, a one-time U.S. ally who left Pakistan for Britain in 2008 after being forced out of the presidency he secured in 1999 military coup. Despite his promises to return to Pakistan and lead a new political party, court motions against the former ruler make it increasingly unlikely he will.

Along with issuing the warrant Saturday, Judge Rana Nisar Ahmad also ordered Musharraf to appear before the court on Feb. 19, Pakistan Television reported. Lawyers in the case could not immediately be reached for comment.

Bhutto was killed Dec. 27, 2007, in a gun and suicide bomb blast during a rally weeks after returning to Pakistan to campaign in new elections that Musharraf reluctantly agreed to allow after months of domestic and international pressure.

It was not immediately clear on what basis the arrest warrant was issued. But many of Bhutto's supporters accuse the former president of intentionally not doing enough to ensure her protection, and trying to cover up government ineptitude in the case afterward.

Musharraf spokesman Saif Ali Khan told a private channel that the former leader will defend himself before the court "at an appropriate time." He did not elaborate.

After her death, Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party rode a wave of public sympathy to garner the most seats in the February 2008 elections. Months later, the party forced Musharraf to quit the presidency by threatening impeachment. He left for London later in the year, and has since spent a good deal of time on the lecture circuit, including in the United States.

The U.S.-backed Musharraf for much of his military rule because he was, at least officially, an ally in the American-led war on global terrorism, and provided Washington assistance in pursuing militants who used Pakistan's soil as a hideout to prepare attacks in neighboring Afghanistan

MORE

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/11/us/politics/AP-US-US-Pakistan.html?_r=1&ref=aponline

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US-Afghan-Pakistan meeting in doubt amid US prisoner row


* Trilateral meetings being held periodically in bid to foster stability in Afghanistan, Pakistan


KABUL: A meeting scheduled this month between Pakistani, Afghan and US officials in Washington is in doubt as a rift grows between Islamabad and Washington over US citizen Raymond Davis, accused of killing two men.

The Obama administration is insisting diplomatic immunity should cover Raymond Davis, who shot dead two Pakistani men last month in what he said was an attempted robbery on a street in the Pakistani city of Lahore

The case has become a lightning rod for anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, which the United States counts as an important, if unreliable, ally in its war against terrorists that launch attacks against its soldiers in Afghanistan. The Afghan embassy in Washington said Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasul and other ministers would attend the meeting as scheduled from February 23 to 25, and the US State Department indicated this week that planning continued for the gathering.

MORE

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\02\12\story_12-2-2011_pg7_23

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Weekend Edition
February 11 - 13, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/qadir02112011.html

The Burhani Initiative

Why Did Joe Biden Rush to Visit Pakistan?

By SHAUKAT QADIR

Joe Biden, the US Vice President, spent a very busy day in Islamabad on January 12, 2011, on a rather hastily scheduled visit, after his trip to Kabul.Ostensibly, this unscheduled visit was to reassure Pakistan of America’s long-term commitment to Pakistan, and to express its concern on Salmaan Taseer’s murder and the public reaction of supporting Mumtaz Qadri.

Before looking at recent developments that might have a better explanation for this unscheduled visit, it is important to recall that Biden is a strong opponent to prolonged US presence in Afghanistan and continued to oppose the ‘surge’ of US troops there, even after it was sanctioned by a reluctant Obama.

While Biden and Obama favored talks with the Taliban, Petraeus — supported by the secretaries of state and defense — opposed talks until a decisive US victory forces them to the negotiating table from a position of weakness. Needless to add, the GHQ opposes Petraeus’ policy and doubts that US forces can ever achieve a ‘decisive victory’ over the Taliban.

Since December 2010, events have speeded up; events that might lead the US to re-think the ‘Petraeus policy’ and offer a more plausible explanation for Biden’s visit. To begin with, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who heads the Afghan High Council for Peace and is the only Tajik veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war era to have kept contacts with some Taliban members, addressed a Pashtun Jirga (council) in Nangarhar (a Taliban infested region) and said words to the effect that ‘this is your country’ and ‘we have all made mistakes that we need to learn from.’ Most significantly, the Jirga concluded that negotiations with the Taliban should begin.

Following this remarkable event, Rabbani was dispatched to Tehran while Afghan President Karzai travelled to Istanbul for the fifth summit, hosted by Turkish President Abdullah Gul for Karzai and Zardari, in another attempt to bring the two closer together. Turkey seems to be succeeding in something that the US has consistently failed at. At the conclusion of the summit, Turkey came up with a surprising offer: It was prepared to ‘open a representative office for the Taliban’— a suggestion which, according to Karzai, came from “dignitaries close to the Taliban”. Many have interpreted Karzai’s comment as a reference to Pakistani officials. The Taliban have not denied that this suggestion might have come from them!

Meanwhile, Rabbani’s visit to Tehran, where Tajiks are more welcomed than Pashtuns, is seen as an attempt to bring Tehran on board — an attempt at reconciliation with the Taliban. Tehran, with predominantly Shia Muslims, has always been concerned about the re-emergence of the diehard Taliban, who are Sunni and mistreat the Shia minority. Rabbani’s visit was not met with total success, but it was soon followed up by a visit from Muhammed Fahim, another Tajik and currently vice president of Afghanistan. Curiously, Fahim’s visit coincided with that of an erstwhile KGB General, Viktor Ivanov, who now heads the Russian anti-narcotic force. It seems that Tehran is prepared to ‘wait and see’.

Early this month, Rabbani led a 25-member delegation to Islamabad where, significantly, he met  Pakistan’s  Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Kayani in the GHQ; a fact that signals the COAS’ endorsement of the ‘Burhani initiative’, given Burhani’s commitment of excluding the US from negotiations with the Taliban.

While allies in the war against terrorism, the US and Pakistan have significantly diverging interests in the ‘end game’ in Afghanistan, particularly in the pursuit of the ‘Petraeus policy’. For its success, Pakistan has been subjected to the continuous ‘do more’ mantra, with reference to the presence of the Haqqani group in North Waziristan; an act that the GHQ has consistently refused.

In fact, during the meeting that took place last year between Obama and Kayani in Washington DC last year, after having heard Obama, Kayani handed over an 11-page document to Obama, containing his analysis of the situation, and where and why the US was in error. Reportedly, Obama was taken aback, but assured Kayani that the document would be “fully and seriously considered”.

In pursuit of divergent interests, the two allies have frequently been playing a double game with each other. While Pakistan’s duplicity has frequently been highlighted in the US media, only a few analysts have pointed out America’s consistent duplicity and the fact that Pakistan, being a geographical neighbor of Afghanistan, has greater justification for guarding its interests in the long-term than the US.

MORE

http://www.counterpunch.org/qadir02112011.html

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How Pakistan could be made to pay for an American killer

Veiled threats over US aid as court accuses consulate adviser of cold-blooded murder

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent


Saturday, 12 February 2011



Pakistani police believe an American official who shot dead two men in the city of Lahore committed "cold-blooded murder" and have rejected his claim that he was acting in self-defence.


A judge has ordered that he be detained in custody for a further 14 days.

In the latest development in an incident that is rapidly turning into a diplomatic stand-off between Washington and its regional ally, the police chief in Lahore, Aslam Tareen, said his team's inquiries had led them to reject Raymond Davis's claim that his life had been in danger.

"His plea has been rejected by police investigators. He gave no chance to them to survive. That is why we consider it was not self-defence," said Mr Tareen. "We have proof it was not self-defence. It was cold-blooded murder."

MORE

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/how-pakistan-could-be-made-to-pay-for-an-american-killer-2212510.html

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South Asia
Feb 15, 2011 
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MB15Df01.html 
 
 
US and Pakistan square off


By M K Bhadrakumar

The United States State Department has announced that the trilateral United States-Pakistan-Afghanistan meeting at foreign minister level, scheduled to take place in Washington on February 23-24, has been indefinitely postponed. Washington ascribes the postponement due to a cabinet reshuffle in Islamabad on Friday in which foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was replaced.

Islamabad has also signaled that the proposed visit by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is in doubt - "There is no clear date for the president's visit".

Meanwhile, there have been threatening noises from Washington that US aid to Pakistan might be in jeopardy and, if ABC News is to be believed, a top White House official warned the Pakistani ambassador that diplomatic ties might be curtailed.

All this is happening on account of the continued detention of a single American national commonly known as "Raymond Davis" in the Pakistani city of Lahore, despite the urgings by senior US officials at the political and diplomatic level that he should be forthwith released.

Davis is employed by the US government and is accused of shooting dead two armed men in Lahore. The US Embassy in Islamabad said the man, who it claims fired in self-defense, is covered by diplomatic immunity and should be immediately released.

Davis' detention ought to have been a perfect case for some quiet, patient diplomacy. The incident has impacted on Pakistan's fragile political situation. The widespread "anti-Americanism" that lurks just below the surface in Pakistani society; popular indignation bordering on anger that the government is colluding with the US's war in Afghanistan; tensions between the federal government in Islamabad and the opposition-run provincial government in Lahore (which arrested Davis); the tenuous equations between the civilian government and the military; and the sheer ambiguity surrounding the incident (who is "Davis" actually, what was his mission on that fateful evening in Lahore, and so on) - all these complicate the Davis case.
 
MORE

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MB15Df01.html

 

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US Misinformation: International Law is Clear that Diplomatic Immunity is Not Absolute


By Anonymous
Created 02/13/2011 - 10:53

by:
Yasmeen Ali
 

Lahore, Pakistan--You cannot open the TV, or read a paper here without more and more news about Raymond Davis and his murderous act. His killing on Jan. 27 of two young Pakistanis has created international waves, too, plunging the Pakistan-America relationship into stormy waters.

A great deal has been written about the case: Raymond Davis’s employment status, whether he is a diplomat or not, who his victims were and what led to their demise at his hands, and finally whether or not Davis can be detained and ultimately tried under the Pakistani Law.

Interestingly though, nobody in the media has made a study of the Vienna Diplomatic Coventions that discuss diplomatic immunity. The convention of 1961 gets cited routinely by the American government, which claims it grants all diplomatic workers immunity from prosecution.

But that claim overstates the case. The actual document -- never actually quoted -- is more nuanced.

Yasmeen Ali

A friend notes, “The issue is not who the two Pakistanis were. The real issue is: The US media has confirmed what the US government is denying: Davis runs a private security firm. He is a military contractor. He is registered in Colorado as the owner of a security firm [1].” He says the questions that should be asked are: What was his real job in Lahore/Islamabad/Peshawar? And can a diplomats carry an unlicensed gun?”

This same friend also suggests that the indentity of the two Pakistani shooting victims -- according to a number of Pakistani reports, and to several in the US, including ABC News, they were working for Pakistani intelligence and were tailing Davis -- is a distraction. He says the real issues are what Davis was doing here and secondly, can a so-called “technical advisor”--the term the US State Department finally settled on to describe his job -- claim diplomatic immunity?

I would argue, though, that the real issue is a general ignorance concerning what diplomatic immunity is, and whether such immunity extends to all acts of any nature committed by an individual, even if that individual does qualify as a diplomat. All other questions are a distraction.

The concept of diplomatic rights was established in the mid-17th century in Europe and since then came gradually to be accepted throughout the world. These rights were formalized by the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which protects diplomats from being persecuted or prosecuted while on a diplomatic mission.

However, if we examine the specific articles of that Vienna Convention of 1961, some interesting facts emerge.

First, Article 29 states that the person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving or host state shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person, freedom or dignity. But those, like the US State Department and Davis’s Pakistani attorney, who demand the release of Raymond Davis on this ground, have obviously neglected to read, or don’t want others to read, the related articles within the Convention which strip away any absolute blanket coverage under the guise of “diplomatic immunity” for visiting or appointed diplomats.

Article 38 of the Vienna Convention 1961 states that except where additional privileges and immunities have been specifically granted by the host State, a diplomatic agent who is a national of or permanently resident in that State shall enjoy only immunity from jurisdiction, and inviolability, in respect of official acts performed in the exercise of his functions.

The above article clearly differentiates between an act carried out as part of his official duties and those done as a personal act. Any actions done personally and outside the ambit of official consular duties shall not be covered by “diplomatic immunity.”

Article 37 of the 1961 convention goes on to reinforce the above limitation on immunity by stating:

…Members of the administrative and technical staff of the mission, together with members of their families forming part of their respective households, shall, if they are not nationals of or permanently resident in the receiving State, enjoy the privileges and immunities specified in articles 29to 35, except that the immunity from civil and administrative jurisdiction of the receiving State specified in paragraph 1 of article 31 shall not extend to acts performed outside the course of their duties.

The question then becomes not whether or not those murdered were Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agents, robbers or fruit sellers, but whether Davis did or did not have diplomatic immunity, but whether his fatal shooting of the two men was conducted while he was involved in performing his official duties.

If the answer to that question is no, Raymond Davis cannot claim diplomatic immunity.

The US State Department is also carefully avoiding mentioning a later treaty, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963. That treaty, which extends and further clarifies, and where there may be a conflict, would supersede the earlier treaty, states in Section II, Article 41 in its first paragraph regarding the “Personal inviolability of consular officers”:

Consular officers shall not be liable to arrest or detention pending trial, except in the case of a grave crime and pursuant to a decision by the competent judicial authority.

The law here would seem to be quite clear. If Davis was in Lahore on anything other than official consular business, and if he killed two people “in cold blood” as the Lahore prosecutor has stated, then legal authorities in Pakistan are absolutely within their rights under the Vienna Conventions to be holding him for trial.

If he is released before a judicial determination regarding his claim of immunity, or if he is found to be properly detained but is released anyhow before standing trial for the killings, it would be not because he has diplomatic immunity, but because of political pressure from the US. But that would be something that is outside of the realm of the law.

Yasmeen Ali is a Pakistani attorney who lives in Lahore. She offered this article, which ran originally in the Pakistan Observer and in her own blog, PakPotpourri2 [2], exclusively to ThisCantBeHappening! for publication in the US

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source URL: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/461
Links:
[1] http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/450
[2] http://pakpotpourri2.wordpress.com/

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Reports: Pakistan May Trade Jailed US Consulate Worker for Scientist
(Aafia Siddiqui !)

Clashes Within Pakistani Govt Over Davis' 'Immunity'


by Jason Ditz, February 14, 2011

Disputes over the legal status of US consulate employee Raymond Davis look to be splintering Pakistan’s ruling Pakistani Peoples Party (PPP) today, as PPP Central Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab claimed Davis enjoyed diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention. This sparked angry condemnations amongst opposition figures, and eventually a rejection from the president’s office, which said it was her “personal opinion.”

MORE

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/14/reports-pakistan-may-trade-jailed-us-consulate-worker-for-scientist/

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Inside the Killing Machine

President Obama is ordering a record number of Predator strikes. An exclusive interview with a man who approved ‘lethal operations.’


By Tara Mckelvey

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27480.htm

February 15, 2011 "Newsweek" - -- It was an ordinary-looking room located in an office building in northern Virginia. The place was filled with computer monitors, keyboards, and maps. Someone sat at a desk with his hand on a joystick. John A. Rizzo, who was serving as the CIA’s acting general counsel, hovered nearby, along with other people from the agency. Together they watched images on a screen that showed a man and his family traveling down a road thousands of miles away. The vehicle slowed down, and the man climbed out.

A moment later, an explosion filled the screen, and the man was dead. “It was very businesslike,” says Rizzo. An aerial drone had killed the man, a high-level terrorism suspect, after he had gotten out of the vehicle, while members of his family were spared. “The agency was very punctilious about this,” Rizzo says. “They tried to minimize collateral damage, especially women and children.”

The broad outlines of the CIA’s operations to kill suspected terrorists have been known to the public for some time—including how the United States kills Qaeda and Taliban militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan. But the formal process of determining who should be hunted down and “blown to bits,” as Rizzo puts it, has not been previously reported. A look at the bureaucracy behind the operations reveals that it is multilayered and methodical, run by a corps of civil servants who carry out their duties in a professional manner. Still, the fact that Rizzo was involved in “murder,” as he sometimes puts it, and that operations are planned in advance in a legalistic fashion, raises questions.

More than a year after leaving the government, Rizzo, a bearded, elegant 63-year-old who wears cuff links and pale yellow ties, discussed his role in the CIA’s “lethal operations” with me over Côtes du Rhone and steak in a Washington restaurant. At times, Rizzo sounded cavalier. “It’s basically a hit list,” he said. Then he pointed a finger at my forehead and pretended to pull a trigger. “The Predator is the weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head.”

The number of such killings, carried out mostly by Predators in Pakistan, has increased dramatically during the Obama administration, and these covert actions have become an integral part of U.S. counterterrorism strategy.

How CIA staffers determine whether to target someone for lethal operations is a relatively straightforward, and yet largely unknown, story. The president does not review the individual names of people; Rizzo explains that he was the one who signed off. People in Washington talk about a “target list,” as former undersecretary of state Richard Armitage described the process at a recent event in Washington. In truth, there is probably no official CIA roster of those who are slated to die. “I never saw a list,” says a State Department official who has been involved in discussions about lethal operations, speaking without attribution because of the nature of the subject. Officials at the CIA select targets for “neutralization,” he explains. “There were individuals we were searching for, and we thought, it’s better now to neutralize that threat,” he says.

The military and the CIA often pursue the same targets—Osama bin Laden, for example—but handle different regions of the world. Sometimes they team up—or even exchange jobs. When former CIA officer Henry A. Crumpton was in Afghanistan after 9/11, he and Gen. Stanley McChrystal—the former head of Joint Special Operations Command, a secretive military unit—worked closely together, and so did their subordinates. “Some of the people I knew and who worked for me went to work for him—and vice versa,” recalls Crumpton. Some counterterrorism experts say that President Obama and his advisers favor a more aggressive approach because it seems more practical—that administration officials prefer to eliminate terrorism suspects rather than detain them. “Since the U.S. political and legal situation has made aggressive interrogation a questionable activity anyway, there is less reason to seek to capture rather than kill,” wrote American University’s Kenneth Anderson, author of an essay on the subject that was read widely by Obama White House officials. “And if one intends to kill, the incentive is to do so from a standoff position because it removes potentially messy questions of surrender.”

In defense of a hard-nosed approach, administration officials say the aerial-drone strikes are wiping out Qaeda militants and reducing the chances of another terrorist attack. They have also been careful to reassure the public that the killings are legal. When NEWSWEEK asked the administration for comment, a U.S. official who declined to be identified addressing such a sensitive subject said: “These CT [counterterrorism] operations are conducted in strict accordance with American law and are governed by legal guidance provided by the Department of Justice.”

Explains Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer, “We’re not in kindergarten on this anymore: we’ve been doing this since 2001, and there’s a well-established protocol.”

A Los Angeles Times article once described John Rizzo as “the most influential career lawyer in CIA history,” and he arguably knows more than anyone else in the government about the legal aspects of the CIA’s targeted killings. But he stumbled into the world of espionage almost by accident. He graduated from George Washington University Law School and was living in D.C. in the 1970s when the Church committee released its report on the CIA’s attempts to assassinate foreign leaders. Rizzo sensed an opportunity: “With all that going on, they’d need lawyers.” He got a CIA job soon afterward.

Decades later, as the CIA’s interrogations and lethal operations were ramped up after 9/11, Rizzo found himself at the center of controversy. He was, as he puts it, “up to my eyeballs” in President Bush’s program of enhanced interrogations in the so-called black sites, or secret prisons, located in Afghanistan and in other countries. Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo wrote the infamous “torture memo” of August 2002 because Rizzo had asked for clarification about techniques that could be used on detainees. Rizzo had once hoped to become the CIA’s general counsel, but members of the Senate intelligence committee balked because of the role he played in authorizing the interrogations. Rizzo retired in 2009.

Today, Rizzo can sometimes sound boastful. “How many law professors have signed off on a death warrant?” he asks. He is quick to emphasize that the groundwork was prepared in a judicious manner, and felt it important that he observe the killing of some of the high-level terrorism suspects via live footage shown in CIA offices. “I was concerned that it be done in the cleanest possible way,” he explains.

Clean, but always morally complex. Rizzo would sometimes find himself sitting in his office on the seventh floor of the CIA building with a cable about a terrorism suspect in front of him, and he would wonder how his Irish-Italian parents would feel about his newly assigned duties.

After President Bush authorized the CIA to hunt down Qaeda fighters in the wake of 9/11, “the attorneys were always involved, but they were very good—very aggressive and helpful, in fact,” says Crumpton. “They would help us understand international law and cross-border issues, and they would interpret specific language of the presidential directive.”

Under another Bush order, signed several years later, a variety of people who worked in terrorist camps could be targeted, and not just named terrorism suspects; at that point, the pool of potential candidates reviewed by CIA lawyers became much larger. Despite the secrecy surrounding these orders, their scope has become clear. “The authority given in these presidential findings is surely the most sweeping and most lethal since the founding of the CIA,” William C. Banks, director of Syracuse University’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, told a House committee.

The hub of activity for the targeted killings is the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, where lawyers—there are roughly 10 of them, says Rizzo—write a cable asserting that an individual poses a grave threat to the United States. The CIA cables are legalistic and carefully argued, often running up to five pages. Michael Scheuer, who used to be in charge of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, describes “a dossier,” or a “two-page document,” along with “an appendix with supporting information, if anybody wanted to read all of it.” The dossier, he says, “would go to the lawyers, and they would decide. They were very picky.” Sometimes, Scheuer says, the hurdles may have been too high. “Very often this caused a missed opportunity. The whole idea that people got shot because someone has a hunch—I only wish that was true. If it were, there would be a lot more bad guys dead.”

MORE

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27480.htm
 
 

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Obama urges Pakistan to free jailed U.S. Embassy employee

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/02/15/obama.pakistan/index.html?hpt=T2

Washington (CNN) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Pakistan to release a jailed U.S. diplomat accused of killing two people, warning that his prosecution could endanger the "important principle" of diplomatic immunity.

"Obviously, we're concerned about the loss of life. You know, we're not callous about that," Obama told reporters during a White House news conference Tuesday. "But there's a broader principle at stake that I think we have to uphold."

The detained man, Raymond Davis, is suspected in the shooting deaths of two Pakistani men in Lahore in January. He claimed he was defending himself against an attempted robbery, and the United States says he has diplomatic immunity.

His arrest has strained relations between the United States and Pakistan, a key ally in the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday and expressed regret for the "extraordinarily unfortunate incident involving a diplomat assigned to the United States Embassy."

"I want to come here today to express our deepest regret for this tragic event and to express the sorrow of the American people for the loss of life that has taken place," Kerry told reporters in Lahore.

MORE

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/02/15/obama.pakistan/index.html?hpt=T2

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Diplomat's Murder Charge Could Worsen U.S. Relations With Pakistan


By Doug McKelway

Published February 15, 2011 | FoxNews.com

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/15/diplomats-murder-charge-worsen-relations-pakistan/?test=latestnews
 
The arrest of a U.S. diplomat in Pakistan on murder charges threatens to worsen a difficult relationship with Pakistan, a strategic ally in the war on terror.

Raymond Davis, a U.S. consular staffer in the Lahore region of Pakistan, was arrested on Jan. 27 after he allegedly shot and killed two armed men on motor bikes whom, Davis claims, were trying to rob him. A third man, a bystander, apparently died when he was run-over by a U.S. Embassy van that was en route to rescue Davis.

Davis says he was forced to open fire in self-defense. But Pakistani authorities have rejected that claim. "He gave no chance to them to survive. It was cold-blooded murder," says Lahore police chief Aslam Tareen.

The incident is now threatening to ignite a full-blown international crisis.

"There is intense frustration, if not bitterness on both sides of this relationship,” said Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution. “On the American side there's a sense that Pakistan must do more. On the Pakistani side, there is a sense we're doing it already, we're doing more than you are."

President Obama may have fed some fuel to the diplomatic fire at his Tuesday press conference when he indicated Davis is a diplomat, protected by diplomatic immunity.

"We've got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future,” The president said. “And that is if -- if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution.".

MORE

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/15/diplomats-murder-charge-worsen-relations-pakistan/?test=latestnews

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U.S. plans own criminal investigation of U.S. Embassy guard held in killings in Pakistan


By Greg Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 15, 2011; 8:50 PM



The Justice Department plans to conduct a criminal investigation of an American security guard's involvement in the fatal shooting of two Pakistani men last month, according to a senior lawmaker sent by the White House to Pakistan to defuse a growing diplomatic rift.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who arrived in Lahore on Tuesday, told Pakistani reporters that the Justice Department "will conduct its own full criminal investigation regardless of the immunity" that U.S. officials contend should protect the guard from prosecution in Pakistan.

Kerry's disclosure appeared meant to convince authorities in Pakistan that Raymond A. Davis will face legal scrutiny in the United States despite the administration's position that he has diplomatic immunity in Pakistan and should be released.

Kerry's comments came as President Obama made his first public remarks about the case, saying that Pakistan is obligated under international conventions to release Davis, a security contractor who is assigned to the U.S. consulate in Lahore.

"We expect Pakistan [to] recognize Mr. Davis as a diplomat," Obama said. "We're going to be continuing to work with the Pakistani government to get this person released."

The combination of Obama's comments, Kerry's trip and the pledge of a criminal probe represents a significant escalation of an effort that has been underway for weeks to end Davis's detention in a jail in Lahore.

A U.S. official familiar with the Justice Department plan said that the pledge of a criminal probe "was intended to signal that the U.S. government takes this seriously," but that it should not be interpreted as an indication that officials in the United States believe Davis broke any laws.

MORE

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/15/AR2011021506165.html

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Newsweek Defends Drones: Plays Down Civilian Deaths, Legal Questions

BY: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)


NEW YORK - February 16 - Newsweek's February 21 assessment of the CIA's drone assassination program in Pakistan is a largely uncritical defense of the White House policy, with little space for critics who argue the killings are illegal, counterproductive and exact a heavy toll on innocent civilians.

Newsweek presents the piece as an exclusive look at the targeting decisions involved in the CIA's drone program: "The formal process of determining who should be hunted down...has not been previously reported." The CIA unsurprisingly does not talk publicly about these operations. But Newsweek reporter Tara McKelvey puts a positive spin on the program: "A look at the bureaucracy behind the operations reveals that it is multilayered and methodical, run by a corps of civil servants who carry out their duties in a professional manner."

Near the beginning of the piece, readers are given a glimpse of one drone strike: "An aerial drone had killed the man, a high-level terrorism suspect, after he had gotten out of the vehicle, while members of his family were spared." Is this typical?

One research paper determined civilians made up 32 percent of deaths from drone strikes in Pakistan (New America Foundation, 2/24/10). This count is almost certainly low, as its data is taken from major U.S. and English-language Pakistani news outlet reports and accepts their characterizations of "civilians" and "militants."

The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) conducted an on-the ground investigation of drone attacks (from 2009 and early 2010), and determined that the nine attacks they surveyed produced a total of 30 civilian deaths (10/10). The CIVIC report points out that Pakistani media outlets, based on government figures, put the civilian death rate from drones at about 90 percent.

The article is short on outside voices who might raise concerns about civilian deaths, or even question the legality of the CIA carrying out assassinations via remote-controlled drone aircraft. Newsweek explains that Obama administration officials have "been careful to reassure the public that the killings are legal." The evidence for this, in the next sentence, is an anonymous official who states that "operations are conducted in strict accordance with American law."

The piece stresses the care taken in the CIA's internal reviews: "The CIA cables are legalistic and carefully argued, often running up to five pages." Requests for strikes, according to one former CIA official, "would go to the lawyers, and they would decide. They were very picky."

A more nuanced report about the CIA's drone program by the New Yorker's Jane Mayer (10/26/09) suggested that the U.S. doesn't even pick all its assassination targets, allowing Pakistani officials to direct many drone strikes--a concession to Pakistan's government that would undermine the notion that the strikes are always the subject of careful vetting.

Critics of the drone program's legality are not hard to come by--groups like the ACLU (1/13/10) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (8/3/10) have long argued the strikes could violate the law, as has the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions (5/28/10).

Legal or not, Newsweek explains that "Obama and his advisers favor a more aggressive approach because it seems more practical--that administration officials prefer to eliminate terrorism suspects rather than detain them." The magazine adds that "administration officials say the aerial drone strikes are wiping out Qaeda militants and reducing the chances of another terrorist attack."

In fact, many both inside and outside the government have argued that the strategy is counterproductive; as London School of Economics professor Fawaz Gerges pointed out less than a year ago in the pages of Newsweek (6/7/10), former legal adviser to Army Special Operations Jeffrey Addicott argued that the strategy is "creating more enemies than we're killing or capturing." Mayer's New Yorker piece also cited military advisers who make the case that the many civilian deaths from drone attacks result in "more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased."

Newsweek does not completely ignore critics of a government program to kill alleged terrorist suspects in Afghanistan and Pakistan; they are stuffed into the final paragraphs of the article. After noting that there has been "little outcry" about Obama's "lethal operations"--even though he has authorized four times as many drone attacks as George W. Bush did--Newsweek admits that

for all the bureaucratic review, it's not always precise in the real world. In December people took to the streets of Islamabad to protest the strikes and to show support for a Waziristan resident, Karim Khan, whose son and brother were killed in a strike in 2009 and has filed a lawsuit against the U.S., charging a CIA official for their deaths.

Newsweek then quotes one academic who argues that CIA drone pilots are "are civilians directly engaged in hostilities, an act that makes them 'unlawful combatants' and possibly subject to prosecution."

Placing information about dead civilians and questions about legality at the bottom of the article--well after assurances to the contrary--signals that Newsweek does not consider these parts of the story to be of much importance.

ACTION:
Tell Newsweek that their February 21 piece on CIA drone strikes should have given more attention to critics of the CIA's drone assassinations, who emphasize that the attacks kill civilians and may be illegal.

CONTACT:
Newsweek
letters@newsweek.com

###
FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/02/16-12

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Diplomatic and Consular Immunity: One Rule for Foreign Consulates in US,
Another for US Consulates Abroad


By Anonymous
Created 02/16/2011 - 21:59
by:
Dave Lindorff

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/465
 

President Obama, before he was a President or a Senator, was a constitutional law professor. He should know the law.

And yet in the increasingly dangerous show-down over Pakistan’s arrest and detention of Lahore consular contract “security official” Raymond Davis, who is charged with two counts of murder for the shooting deaths of two young Pakistanis [1] on January 27, the president has grossly misstated what international law is with respect to the immunity from prosecution of diplomatic and consular officials.

As the president put it on a few days ago at a press conference, “With respect to Davis, our diplomat in Pakistan, we’ve got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future. If our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country’s local prosecution. We respect it with respect to diplomats who are here. We expect Pakistan, that’s a signatory should recognize Davis as a diplomat, to abide by the same convention.”

MUCH MORE

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/465

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Pakistani judge delays hearing for jailed U.S. diplomat


Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A Pakistani judge on Thursday postponed until March 14 a hearing for a jailed American diplomat accused of shooting and killing two men, a government official said.

Thursday's hearing was delayed after the Foreign Ministry asked that it be given three weeks to respond to questions from the Lahore High Court about whether Raymond Davis is entitled to diplomatic immunity, according to Khawaja Haris, a senior government attorney.

Davis was not in court and neither was his lawyer or any representative from the U.S. Embassy, Haris said.

VIDEO & ARTICLE

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/02/17/pakistan.us.diplomat/index.html?hpt=T2

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Threats of Revolt in Pakistan Over Possible ‘Pardon’ of US Official

Anger Over Killings May Make Pardon Impossible

by Jason Ditz, February 16, 2011

With US officials angrily demanding the release of consulate employee Raymond Davis from a Lahore prison from the very start, it seemed inevitable that the Zardari government would eventually cave to the pressure and release him, either on grounds of “diplomatic immunity” or as a blanket pardon for the two murders he is accused of. Indeed, it was so assumed that this would be the case that the widow of one of the slain took her own life in protest before any announcement was even made.

MORE

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/16/threats-of-revolt-in-pakistan-over-possible-pardon-of-us-official/

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Was Davis Running Drone Programme in Pakistan?


By Chidanand Rajghatta

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27511.htm

February 18, 2011 "Times Of India" -- WASHINGTON: A mysterious halt to U.S Predator strikes on Pakistan after the Raymond Davis incident in Lahore has led to intense speculation the American "diplomat" was connected to the Drone program even as Washington and Islamabad are going eyeball-to-eyeball over his status.

Davis, 36, was apprehended by Pakistani police after he shot dead two Pakistanis on a busy Lahore thoroughfare on January 27, four days after the last drone U.S Drone strike in Pakistan. There has not been a single strike in the 25 days since then, making it the third-longest period of inactivity since the U.S ramped up the Predator program to take out terrorists infesting Pakistan's frontier regions, according to Long War Journal (LWJ), a blog that tracks U.S Predator attacks.

Speculation is now rife that Davis was somehow connected to the Predator program since he was reportedly carrying a GPS, telescope, camera and assorted equipment not usually associated with thoroughbred diplomats. Pakistani authorities have also accused him of unauthorized travels to the Frontier region and being in touch with extremist elements in Waziristan, which suggests he might have been coordinating the attacks with U.S moles in the region.

While Davis claimed that he shot the two Pakistanis in self-defense when they were trying to rob him, some reports have said they were ISI tails assigned to follow him because the Pakistani intelligence felt he had crossed certain unspecified "red lines." Those red lines may have involved discovering the Pakistani establishment's links with terrorists group, a pursuit which led to the death of Wall Street Journalist Danny Pearl.

According to the LWJ, it is also possible the Obama administration has halted the Drone strikes for political reasons, as Washington negotiates Davis' release
 
MORE

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27511.htm