The US claim that Pakistan is violating the convention is simply nonsense.
TORONTO: This is with response to Najmuddin A Sheikh’s article “The Raymond Davis Case: Options for the government” (February 11). The US media have been uncritically quoting the State Department as saying that Pakistan is “violating” the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963 by holding Davis in jail on murder charges. These reporters should check the actual document as the prosecutorial, the police and the judicial authorities in Lahore and the state of Punjab are doing exactly what they are supposed to do in holding Davis on murder charges, pending a judicial determination concerning whether or not he can properly claim diplomatic immunity.
The US claim that Pakistan is violating the convention is simply nonsense — they have double standards as the US routinely violates the Vienna Diplomatic Accord that governs international diplomatic rights.
Asif
Published in The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2011.
