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Raymond Davis Case: Developing Story

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Well i think its going to be a tug of war between Zardari's government and Courts.
The former wants to make his payers happy, and later wants justice.
and i still believe in our Judiciary system a little bit.

Mr Davis will be set free, but its going to be interesting.
 
Thy're saying he's probably going to court. He should be sentenced with life in prison or be exchanged for all innocent civilians living US prisons like the ones Musharraf sold for $2000
 
Pakistan judge blocks move to hand over US gunman

By Waqar Hussain (AFP)

LAHORE, Pakistan — A Pakistani judge on Tuesday blocked any move to hand over to US authorities an American government employee under investigation for double murder, and put his name on the exit control list.

The United States on Monday again called for the release of Raymond Davis, who was arrested after killing two Pakistani motorcyclists in broad daylight in Lahore, saying that he acted in legitimate self-defence.

But a Pakistani lawyer petitioned the Lahore high court under public interest laws to block any move to hand Davis over to the United States.

"I am restraining him (from being handed over to US authorities). Whether he has or does not have (diplomatic) immunity will be decided by the court," ruled Lahore high court chief justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry.

"An order is issued to put his name on the ECL (exit control list). The case is adjourned for 15 days."

Representing the Pakistani government in court in Lahore, deputy attorney general Naveed Inayat Malik, asked the judge to give "time" to the Pakistani foreign ministry to determine whether Davis has diplomatic immunity or not.

Washington says Davis is a member of the US embassy's "technical administrative staff" and therefore entitled to "full criminal immunity".

"He cannot be lawfully arrested or detained in accordance with the Vienna Convention," US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters in Washington.

But the Pakistani lawyer who brought the private petition, Saeed Zafar, has argued that under international law, diplomatic immunity can be waived for the most serious crimes.

Khawaja Haris, the advocate general of Punjab -- the chief law officer in the province where Davis shot the motorcyclists -- told the court that the Vienna Convention provides immunity to diplomats "within certain limits."

"The federal government has to give a certificate on whether the man has diplomatic immunity or not and whether his diplomatic status is confirmed or not," Haris said.

"What we hear about him and his immunity is through the press only. Since he is involved in a grave crime, this issue has to be decided by the court."

But Washington is adamant that Davis is being held unlawfully and supports his version of events that he was confronted by two armed men on motorcycles.

Davis "had every reason to believe that the armed men meant him bodily harm. And minutes earlier, the two men, who had criminal records, had robbed money and valuables at gunpoint from a Pakistani citizen," said Crowley.

When asked by visiting US congressmen on Monday to free Davis, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said: "It would be prudent to wait for the legal course to be completed".

AFP: Pakistan judge blocks move to hand over US gunman
 
Pakistan court blocks move to release US man
A Pakistani court has ordered the authorities not to release a US man who killed two men in Lahore last week.

The Lahore high court also ordered the government to place the name of Raymond Davis on the "exit control list" to prevent him from leaving Pakistan.

The US embassy has called for his release, saying he has diplomatic status and is immune from prosecution.

Pakistan says he does not have immunity and is not one of the foreign security personnel authorised to carry firearms.

Mr Davis is in custody while police investigate the shooting. He has been charged with the murder of the two men.

Tougher stance
The US embassy in Islamabad has argued that he is a consulate employee who acted in "self-defence when confronted by two armed men on motorcycles" on 27 January.

Mr Davis is said to have told police that the motorcycle rider and his pillion passenger tried to hijack his vehicle at gunpoint.

As Mr Davis' colleagues came to his aid, their vehicle ran over and killed a third person.

Lawyers in Lahore have filed a petition to the High Court arguing that Mr Davis must stand trial in Pakistan and not be handed over to the US government.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Pakistan says that speculation is rife over the true position of Mr Davis.

Our correspondent says that the US authorities pursued a soft tone immediately following the incident, but they have now hardened their stance and argued that he should be released according to the Vienna Convention.

Pakistani authorities say it increasingly appears that Mr Davis was a private security contractor working for the US government in Pakistan.

They said that a Glock pistol was recovered from Mr Davis and that pistols were also found on the two men who were shot dead.

Mr Davis's permanent employer, according to the Huffington Post website, is a company called Hyperion Protective Consultants LLC based in Orlando, Florida.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12331587
 
Reluctant regret—in ten words

From the moment Raymond Davis, or whatever his real name, shot two young Pakistanis dead near the busy Mozang Churangi on Lahore’s Jail Road and contributed to the death of a third one in an avoidable traffic accident, the US government started making efforts to claim diplomatic immunity for the killer who confessed to the crime, taking the plea of self-defence.

In fact, every effort is being made to influence the police investigations and stall the judicial process. One evidence of this is the refusal of US diplomats to hand over the second vehicle and the driver and persons riding it when it crushed to death 25-year-old Obaidur Rahman, the trader from Shah Alam Market who had no role in the incident involving Davis and the two presumed “robbers.”

The US government is trying to bully Pakistani authorities to release Davis by accusing the police of unlawfully detaining him in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Thereby, it also wants to avoid handing over the Americans and possibly their Pakistani employees to the police for investigation into the death of Obaidur Rahman due to rash driving. And all this is being done in the name of diplomatic immunity, which has been described by sections of the Pakistani media as license to kill.

The long, seven-paragraph statement issued by the US embassy on the Jan 27 incident carried only 10 words regretting the loss of life. “We regret that this incident resulted in loss of life,” is all that the embassy would say about the death of Obaidur Rahman, an innocent man riding his motorcycle when the fleeing US consulate vehicle, which was in violation of the one-way traffic rule, hit and killed him. It is this kind of insensitivity that further inflames the anti-US sentiment in Pakistan.

The vague statement apparently wasn’t meant to refer to the deaths of the other two men, 23-year old Faizan Haider, and Mohammad Faheem, 21, because it clearly mentioned that they “had criminal backgrounds and had minutes earlier robbed money and valuables at gunpoint from a Pakistani citizen in the same area.”

Having presumed that these “two armed men on motorcycles” were criminals, and that “diplomat” Davis acted in self-defence because “he had every reason to believe that they meant him bodily harm,” the US embassy is convinced that the killer can neither be arrested by Pakistani police nor tried in a local court due to diplomatic immunity. The police, on the other hand, has yet to conclude that Faizan Haider and Faheem had a criminal record, though initially a few senior cops had hinted that the deceased were “robbers.” According to his family, Faizan Haider was carrying a pistol for self-defence – just like Davis – due to a blood feud in which his brother had been killed a few weeks ago.

It is now for the police to investigate and decide if Faizan Haider and Faheem were robbers trying to rob Davis in a busy place in broad daylight. And it is for the courts to conclude that Davis indeed was a diplomat deserving immunity, in a case in which he fired with his Beretta pistol to kill two Pakistanis and then tried to escape with the help of other American “diplomats” seated in another vehicle that overran and killed an innocent man.

In fact, it is a straightforward case that professional police investigators would be able to sort out fairly quickly, if they were allowed to work independently. The judicial process too could proceed smoothly if there was no political pressure. If the past is any guide, this is unlikely to happen. Politics and diplomacy have already come into play in the case and the mighty United States would likely exert enough pressure on the spineless Pakistani rulers to do the needful.

If the Americans have their way and Davis is declared a diplomat enjoying immunity, then he would have to be returned to the US to face the judicial process at home. The way the US embassy is trying to protect him from Pakistan’s law, it would be hard to convince the families of the deceased men and the Pakistani people that justice would be done in case he goes on trial in the US.

There have been cases in which Americans committing crimes abroad against non-Americans, including the ones in which US soldiers murdered innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan, have got away with light sentences. Already, many emotional Pakistanis are comparing Davis’ case with that of Dr Aafia Siddiqui – the frail woman of Pakistani origin sentenced to 86 years’ imprisonment for firing at and causing injuries to an American soldier in Afghanistan while she was in custody – and demanding that Davis should be publicly hanged. Others want Dr Aafia swapped with Davis, even though it is a bizarre idea because the two persons and their cases are so dissimilar. The US would probably be able to save Davis, but the cost in terms of losing whatever goodwill it has in Pakistan would be unusually high.

Many aspects of the incident are unclear. Even Davis’ real name is unknown because, during a briefing in Washington, State Department spokesman P J Crowley said the man’s name has been misreported. He refused to disclose his real identity, or the kind of work he was assigned to do in Pakistan. He also didn’t explain as to why the accused was carrying a firearm, which was obviously an unlawful act. The movements of the 40-year-old Davis were also mysterious as the Lahore police wasn’t informed about them. All this gave rise to suspicion that the Americans were trying to hide something to conceal Davis’ identity and his activities.

The US embassy insisted that Davis had a diplomatic passport and Pakistani visa valid until June 2012. The Pakistani authorities have contested the US claim that Davis was a diplomat, though they agree that he was a technical adviser working at the US consulate in Lahore. ABC News, a leading US media network, had earlier unearthed Davis’ identity, reporting that he was an employee of Hyperion Protective Consultants, a Florida-based private security company.

The way Davis fired 13 bullets with his pistol, shooting through the rear screen of his car, giving no chance to Faizan Haider and Faheem to fire back, showed that he was no ordinary diplomat. He was, more probably, a sharpshooter, who calmly made video clips of the two dead or dying men before trying to speed away. Was he, then, an undercover agent on special assignment, as many Pakistanis and sections of the media have been alleging?

All three Pakistanis killed by the Americans in Lahore that day were on motorcycles. “Robbers” riding motorbikes cannot have much of a chance chasing and overpowering a trained, fully armed undercover foreign agent seated securely inside a car.

On Feb 3 last year, the veil on the presence of US military personnel in Pakistan was partially lifted when three American soldiers were killed and two others were injured in a suicide bombing carried out by the Pakistani Taliban in Lower Dir district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The blast also killed five Pakistanis, including Frontier Corps militiamen escorting the Americans, and injured 131, mostly schoolgirls from a nearby school. Every effort was made to disguise the Americans, who were dressed in shalwar-kameez and wearing local caps, as they were being driven to inspect a school destroyed by the militants and rebuilt with US money.

That was the first time that Pakistanis came to know that members of the US Special Forces, at least 200 of them, were secretly operating in their country, ostensibly providing counterinsurgency training to the paramilitary Frontier Corps. The Pakistani government and military had hidden this information from their people. Who knows how many others like Davis are in Pakistan on secret missions, with or without the agreement of the Pakistani authorities.



The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahim yusufzai@yahoo.com

Reluctant regret?in ten words
 
FIR Registered Against Davis for Using Illegal Weapon

Submitted by HQ on February 1, 2011 – 5:25 am
8Share

LAHORE: A First Information Report (FIR) was registered on Monday against US citizen Raymond Davis for using an illegal weapon when he gunned down two men in Lahore.

Raymond-Davis-543-450x227.jpg

American under cover agent Raymond Allen Davis arrested for cold blooded murder in broad daylight

The case against Davis has been registered on the investigation officer’s statement.

Davis is in the custody of the Lahore Police and is being questioned. Earlier, Davis was awarded a six-day physical remand by a court in Lahore.

Police have sent their investigation report to the Punjab government. The report states that Davis, the US embassy and the consulate in Lahore are not cooperating with the police. It states the officials concerned have not replied to a questionnaire sent to them. The report also claims that the Americans have not given the police information on the driver of a vehicle that ran over a third person during the incident.

Meanwhile, the Punjab government is set to inform the federal government of its investigations till now. It is also in contact with the US embassy and the consulate.

Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders including the chief minister, IG Punjab and the Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Lahore are meeting to discuss the police report.

Earlier, Pakistan had rejected the US demand to release Davis, saying that sub judice in a court of law and the legal process should be respected.

Source: FIR registered against Davis for using illegal weapon – The Express Tribune

Below you can see the Exclusive scanned copies of Raymond Allen Davis’s passport released by DAWN:

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So at least now we know for sure that Mr Davis had a valid visa and a Diplomatic passport to go with it.

Eventually Pakistan will have to release him on the ground of Diplomatic immunity and self defense. If they don't then well Pakistan diplomats and embassy over in America better be on their best behavior. Cause next thing you know they ll be getting framed in all sorts of crimes and won't be able to claim immunity under Vienna Convention.

And if Mr Davis is let go, Zardari will loose whatever credibility he has left and good luck to him in the next elections. :lol:
 
Ordinary passport, also called tourist passport Issued to average citizens. Official passport, also called service passport Issued to government employees for work-related travel, and to accompanying dependents. Diplomatic passport Issued to diplomats and consuls for work-related travel, and to accompanying dependents. Having a diplomatic passport is not the equivalent of having diplomatic immunity. A grant of diplomatic status, a privilege of which is diplomatic immunity, has to come from the government of the country in relation to which diplomatic status is claimed. Also, having a diplomatic passport does not mean visa-free travel. A holder of a diplomatic passport usually has to obtain a diplomatic visa, even if a holder of an ordinary passport may enter a country visa-free or may obtain a visa on arrival. In exceptional circumstances, a diplomatic passport is given to a foreign citizen with no passport of his own, such as an exiled VIP who lives, by invitation, in a foreign country.

So i think if its a Diplomatic visa, it should say

Type: Diplomatic- Multiple
 
* No diplomatic immunity covers murder

Can some one shed more light on that? Does it? or It does not?

Diplomatic immunity covers murder..

Article 31 of Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations

Article 31

A diplomatic agent shall enjoy immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State. He shall also enjoy immunity from its civil and administrative jurisdiction, except in the case of:

1. a real action relating to private immovable property situated in the territory of the receiving State, unless he holds it on behalf of the sending State for the purposes of the mission;
2. an action relating to succession in which the diplomatic agent is involved as executor, administrator, heir or legatee as a private person and not on behalf of the sending State;
3. an action relating to any professional or commercial activity exercised by the diplomatic agent in the receiving State outside his official functions.
 
Now this is just an entry visa. Not diplomatic.
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It's diplomatic. Started from 13-02-2010 to 30-06-2010



This states OFFICIAL - MULTIPLE - could be a diplomatic one with the word Official in it.

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Image of old diplomatic visa, which clearly mentions the word DIPLOMATIC VISA
Even if he has a diplomatic visa, he still had to request for the immunity for Pakistan Government.

Do he have it or not?
 
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