‘Davis was after me’

LAHORE: A Pakistani-American doctor believes Raymond Davis came to Pakistan to assassinate him because he had sued the former US president George W Bush for $165 trillion for twice detaining him illegally.

Dr Muhammad Adnan Bhutta, an orthopaedic surgeon currently working at the Lahore General Hospital, was holding a press conference at the Lahore Press Club on Sunday.

He feared that his life was at risk and said he would file an application to the DIG (Operations) on Monday (today) in this regard.

He said that he was detained in the US once on November 11, 2001 for two months and then on January 15, 2002 for a month, because he was mistaken as a suspect in the World Trade Centre bombing on September 11, 2001.

He said that in the detention he was subjected to the worst possible torture. The charges, he said, were later dropped and he was released. He filed a law suit against the then US president, George W Bush, and the FBI for keeping him in illegal detention on false charges of terrorism. In the case, he said, he had demanded $165 trillion as compensation.

Even after his release, he said, he was followed on various occasions both in the US, which made him feel insecure and so he moved back to Pakistan in 2006. The US agencies also stopped him at the airport in the US for interrogation, he claimed.

He said that there were chances Davis had come to kill him or keep him away from further proceeding the case.

He said that on January 27, when he was headed to his car mechanic near Qurtaba Chowk, he felt he was being followed by a white Land Cruiser with tinted windows. He said just before he reached the mechanic’s shop, while he was in front of the Khalid Book Depo on Ferozepur Road, he saw the white civic of Raymond Davis escaping after the shooting.

Dr Bhutta said that it was not a coincidence that the killing happened right in front of the mechanic’s shop.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2011.