A Book By Raymond Davis

[Sine Nomine]

The Contractor: How I Landed in a Pakistani Prison and Ignited a Diplomatic Crisis

We all have heard about Raymond Davis – the CIA operative who sparked a diplomatic row after gunning down two men on the streets of Lahore in January 2011. He has penned ‘his side of the story’ for the first time in a memoir titled The Contractor: How I Landed in a Pakistani Prison and Ignited a Diplomatic Crisis.

Davis was charged for killing two Pakistani men at Qurtaba Chowk in downtown Lahore. A third Pakistani man was struck and killed by a vehicle that was reportedly racing to Davis’ aid. The violent confrontation escalated into a diplomatic crisis, making front-page headlines across the world and straining ties between Islamabad and Washington, as US policymakers pressed for diplomatic immunity for Davis and pushed for his immediate release.

The book was released on Amazon.com on June 27. This is what the description of the book says:

“A lot has been written about the time contractor Raymond Davis spent in a Pakistani jail in 2011. Unfortunately, much of it is misleading—or downright false—information.

Now, the man at the center of the controversy tells his side of the story for the very first time. In The Contractor: How I Landed in a Pakistani Prison and Ignited a Diplomatic Crisis, Davis offers an up-close and personal look at the 2011 incident in Lahore, Pakistan, that led to his imprisonment and the events that took place as diplomats on both sides of the bargaining table scrambled to get him out.

How did a routine drive turn into front-page news? Davis dissects the incident before taking readers on the same journey he endured while trapped in the Kafkaesque Pakistani legal system. As a veteran security contractor, Davis had come to terms with the prospect of dying long before the January 27, 2011 shooting, but nothing could prepare him for being a political pawn in a game with the highest stakes imaginable.

An eye-opening memoir, The Contractor takes the veil off Raymond Davis’s story and offers a sober reflection on the true cost of the War on Terror.”

A former soldier, Davis had experience with the US Special Forces and ran a small security company, according to public US records.

US officials never released details about Davis’ precise job in Pakistan, saying only he was a ‘member of the administrative and technical staff’ of the Islamabad embassy and traveled on a diplomatic passport.

The CIA contractor spent 49 days in Pakistani custody, and was released on March 16, 2011, after the families of the two slain men reached an agreement and were paid $2.4 million in blood money. The Lahore High Court acquitted him on all charges and Davis was flown out of Pakistan.
http://www.larslarson.com/interview...d-pakistani-prison-ignited-diplomatic-crisis/
According to those who went through book,on social media....
Pasha,Zardari, Nawaz and Haqqani all worked to free me out.
The relatives of dead were not going to pardon me ISI persuaded them to do so and the money for Diyat was paid by Pakistani Government.

https://twitter.com/x/status/880478064416882688

His Interview Audio

https://soundcloud.com/https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fthelarslarsonshow%2Fray-davis-full

 

[Sine Nomine]

@DESERT FIGHTER @django @TaimiKhan @Arsalan @Spring Onion @Tesky

@El Sidd

 

[Dark-Destroyer]

how shameful are these politicians and Nawaz sharif is the prime minister of Pakistan if he could help at that time well as prime minister he is doing far better job with practically no foreign policy free fall great job carry on serving your masters...

and as for zardari who's surprised after all those visa's were issued from Dubai who's surprised.

but to know the ISI is involved too well now we know why Pakistan is and has been in such a bad shape for a while is because everyone is busy serving their own interests and they should all be tried for treason.

 

[Hareeb]

The relatives of dead were not going to pardon me ISI persuaded them to do so and the money for Diyat was paid by Pakistani Government.

If this is true then shame on GOP and ISI.

 

[ranjeet]

Gen Pasha was texting courtroom proceedings to then CIA director: Raymond Davis

On March 16, 2011, which was his 49th day in incarceration, Davis appeared before a makeshift courtroom inside Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail, not knowing that this would be his last appearance.

He describes the scene in some details:

“I imagine that at least one of his (Gen Pasha’s) texts described the entrance of a man in a suit, whom I recognised but whose name I could not recall,” he writes.

“As soon as this man entered the courtroom, the room went silent. No one spoke a word. If a cell phone rang, the person to whom it belonged got up and walked outside to answer it. The only thing you could hear was the ceiling fan.”

Davis asked a US embassy official who this man was who identified him as an ISI colonel and said: “He’s a fixer.”
https://www.samaa.tv/pakistan/2017/...oceedings-to-then-cia-director-raymond-davis/

 

[Dawood Ibrahim]

Who knows he might have added some Masala against I S I to make them look dirty

 

[Spring Onion]

@DESERT FIGHTER @django @TaimiKhan @Arsalan @Spring Onion @Tesky

@El Sidd

WASHINGTON: “First pointed at the grille of my car, then at the hood, before inching its way upward until it was level with, and pointed directly at, me,” writes Raymond Davis in his book The Contractor, which arrived at some bookstores in the US on Thursday.

Raymond Allen Davis was contractor with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) when he shot two men in Lahore on Jan 27, 2011. A car coming to rescue Davis killed a third man, Ibadur Rahman, in a hit-and-run while speeding on the wrong side of the road.

On March 16, 2011, Davis was released after the families of the two killed men were paid $2.4 million as blood money. Judges then acquitted him on all charges and Davis immediately returned to the United States.

In his memoir, titled The Contractor: How I Landed in a Pakistani Prison and Ignited a Diplomatic Crisis, Davis talks in detail about his experience in Pakistan.

In a tell-all memoir, the CIA contractor recollects details of the Lahore shooting, his arrest and release

Focusing on the incident that put him in the centre of the diplomatic row between the United States and Pakistan, Davis writes: “As soon as I saw the gun’s muzzle moving in my direction, I unclicked my seatbelt and started to draw the gun.”

He says that the two men on the motorcycle who pulled in front of him at Lahore’s Muzang Chowk could not have known how fast he was at drawing his weapon.

“My fastest time — including lifting my shirt, drawing my gun, aiming it and firing — was .95 of a second, while my average was 1.1 second. That’s about as long as it takes a hummingbird to flap its wings fifty time or a plane to travel 800 feet.”

Davis used a brand new Glock17 gun, issued to him on his arrival in Lahore. Other things — camera, phone and Motorola two-way radio — he received from the CIA contractor he replaced.

“I had left the house that morning with 17 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber, and while defending myself at Muzang Chowk, I squeezed off 10 as I aimed for the two men on the motorcycle.

“And in a matter of two or three seconds, the entire engagement, from the moment I saw the threat to the moment it had been eliminated, was over.”

Claiming that he had never killed a man before, Davis writes: “Thankfully, all 10 rounds I fired found their intended targets.”

He also refers to the autopsy report, showing that he hit one victim, Muhammad Faheem, once in the left thigh, once in the right thigh, twice in the chest and once in the back of the head. He died instantly.

The other victim, Faizan Haider, took five rounds in the back. He tried to run away but collapsed and died in the median about 30 feet away from Davis’ car.

In the last chapter, Davis claims that “ISI … orchestrated my exit. Several guards led me out of the courtroom through a back entrance. … One of the men opened the door, stepped out into a courtyard, and scanned the horizon … once he’d cleared the area, I was waved through door and directed to the SUV idling in the courtyard.”

In the SUV, he met Dale Rush, a doctor from the US Embassy, and a Pakistani man who introduced himself as a colonel. The driver was also from the US Embassy.

The SUV drove him to an airport where a dual-engine Cessna was waiting for him at the runway, with its engine running, and all set to take off.

Davis says that (then) US ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, also was in the plane that flew him to Kabul because “with the ambassador onboard the plane, the Pakistanis would not dare mess around with by denying it clearance to take off”.

Davis claims that the US administration wanted to bring him out of Pakistan because it had plans to take out Osama bin Laden and knew that it would be impossible to get him out once that operation was carried out.

“The reason for the US government to get me out sooner rather than later was growing increasingly urgent, and the reason was even more secretive than the efforts to get him out,” he writes.

“In June 2010, after nearly a decade of searching for bin Laden without success, the CIA picked up some valuable intel about Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who was believed to be bin Laden’s personal courier,” he writes. “It was the agency’s most promising lead in the hunt for bin Laden since 2001.”

That’s why, he adds, “those…responsible for my welfare needed to get me out of the country first, and they needed to do it fast before bin Laden could slip away once again.”

Panetta-Pasha role

Davis also highlights the role that former CIA director Leon Panetta and ISI’s former director general Ahmed Shuja Pasha allegedly played in securing his release. He also briefly mentions former Pakistani ambassador Husain Haqqani.

“No two characters in this unfolding drama worked farther below the waterline than … Panetta and … Pasha,” he writes.

Davis introduces Mr Panetta as a longtime Washington insider but claims that President Obama’s decision to appoint him head of the CIA in January 2009 was “a bit of a surprise” as he had “very little experience in the military and intelligence communities.

Gen Pasha, however, was “nearly his opposite”. Gen Pasha “began serving in the Pakistan Army in 1974 and climbed all the way up the military’s ladder”.

Davis writes that relations between the CIA and ISI were already tense and “my situation escalated it to an even higher level”.

Davis later found that shortly before former Secretary of State John Kerry’s Feb 15, 2011 visit to Pakistan, Gen Pasha had flown to Washington and asked Mr Panetta “point-blank if I worked [for] the CIA. Panetta responded that I didn’t and that the State Department, not the CIA, was handling the matter.”

“Gen Pasha was angered by Panetta’s response and grew even more so when Ambassador Munter, after clearing it with officials from the White House and State Department, explained to him the exact nature of my job.”

“Pasha understood how important it was — for both sides — to get me out of Pakistan as soon as possible, but like his country’s president and prime minister, he was happy to let me remain in jail until an acceptable solution to this increasingly vexing problem could be found.”

Working on the problem from the opposite side of the table, Mr Panetta “sat down with Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, on Feb 21, 2011, and asked for his assistance in getting me out of jail. Haqqani was largely viewed as being pro-American, but in this instance he was not so accommodating”.

Secret meeting in Oman

Davis writes that two days after this meeting, the top military brass for both countries met at a luxury beach resort in Oman. The top-secret meeting had been scheduled months before Davis’ arrest to discuss the war in Afghanistan. But his arrest consumed a large partition of it. “Both sides left saying all the right things.”

Davis claims that his book had been approved by the CIA after major redaction, which delayed it by more than a year. Yet, the CIA allowed him to keep the passage where he talks about Gen Pasha sitting in a courtroom in Lahore and texting the proceedings to Mr Panetta.

On March 16, 2011, which was his 49th day in incarceration, Davis appeared before a makeshift courtroom inside Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail, not knowing that this would be his last appearance.

He describes the scene in some details:

“I imagine that at least one of his (Gen Pasha’s) texts described the entrance of a man in a suit, whom I recognised but whose name I could not recall,” he writes.

“As soon as this man entered the courtroom, the room went silent. No one spoke a word. If a cell phone rang, the person to whom it belonged got up and walked outside to answer it. The only thing you could hear was the ceiling fan.”

Davis asked a US embassy official who this man was who identified him as an ISI colonel and said: “He’s a fixer”

“What’s that mean,” Davis asked.

“Let me put it this way. It’s either really good that he’s here or really bad,” the embassy official said. “Well,” I said, grinning at the official, “let’s hope for option number one.”

It was during this session that the court decided to apply the Sharia law, instead of the penal code.

“What’s going on here Carmela,” Davis asked another embassy official.

“They’ve switched to Sharia law, Ray,” she replied.

“I can’t believe they can get away with this. I’m toast, right? They’re going to drag me into this prison’s courtyard and stone me to death,” Davis said.

“No, Ray. That’s qisas. Sharia law also allows for diyat, which the families of the victims have agreed to accept,” Carmela said.

“I could hear words coming out of her, but they made no sense to me, Qisas? Diyat? Huh?” he writes.

“Qisas basically means ‘en ye for an eye,” Carmela explained and Davis gulped as he assumed this would be his fate.

“Carmela must have seen that fear in my eyes because she hurriedly continued: ‘There’s also diyat, known as blood money. In this case, compensation gets paid to the victim or the victim’s heirs, and the accused goes free.”

Davis writes this plan had been made several weeks before his final appearance in the court, originated perhaps in a meeting between Secretary Kerry and Ambassador Haqqani four weeks earlier.

Davis also refers to another report, which says that this plan was devised during a meeting between Gen Pasha and Ambassador Munter.

“The Pakistani military was also rumoured to have had a hand in it. So, too, President Zardari and Nawaz Sharif.”

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2017

Who knows he might have added some Masala against I S I to make them look dirty

Secrete agencies of every country are supposed to carry dirty work and get the blame for every mess in their countries.

So nothing is dirty about working of all secrete agencies. That is what they are meant for and what they do all around the world.

As far as the masala well the BOOK is approved by CIA and I like one thing about CIA That their secrete agents are worth the money against rivals of CIA even after retirement. While ours are like males after vasectomy.

 

[Sine Nomine]

While ours are like males after vasectomy.

There is rumor that both of dead guys were isi agents.

 

[Spring Onion]

There is rumor that both of dead guys were isi agents.

Actually it is as much a "rumor" as Raymond was CIA agent .

 

[Khan_patriot]

I wonder where I can get a copy in Pakistan, I would love to indulge myself in this piece of fiction

 

[TaimiKhan]

There is rumor that both of dead guys were isi agents.

Even if they were isi guys, they were tailing him for obvious reasons. But that davis did killed them in cold blood as there was no attack on him. He is just trying to make a justification for his killing.

 

[Path-Finder]

well I wonder if there will be any clarification, most likely not! ppp gov at the time was doing everything to get him out and the establishment yielded as well. It is time made in Pakistan governments are made enough of these foreign agents that rule Pakistan.

 

[YeBeWarned]

Even if they were isi guys, they were tailing him for obvious reasons. But that davis did killed them in cold blood as there was no attack on him. He is just trying to make a justification for his killing.

and more scaring that if he is been followed by 2 ISI Agents and later turned to shoot them, that somehow means someone leak this information to him , that he is been tailed so he used his weapon .. most likely someone from Inside Provide him with Pictures , he won't just randomly pick two people two kill from road

 

[django]

@DESERT FIGHTER @django @TaimiKhan @Arsalan @Spring Onion @Tesky

@El Sidd

What he may be saying me be true yet somehow I would not trust this killer to be honest with the truth, i suspect he is over exaggerating his own worth.

 

[El Sidd]

@DESERT FIGHTER @django @TaimiKhan @Arsalan @Spring Onion @Tesky

@El Sidd

Let him just earn his living. Nothing for us to care about