Pakistan mission seeks update on Davis case: Report

Lawyer for Davis says the Lahore shooting had taken place in a ‘war zone’.

Pakistan’s diplomatic mission in the US capital has asked the Justice Department for an update on its promised investigation into CIA contractor Raymond Davis’s last brush with the law, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Davis, who shot and killed two Pakistanis in January, was charged with assault the other day — after a dispute outside a bagel shop in Colorado.

In an Oct. 3 diplomatic note to Justice and the State Department, Ambassador Husain Haqqani referenced “the ongoing investigation” and asked that “the latest status in the matter may kindly be conveyed to the Embassy.” Haqqani said no reply had yet been received.

Asked the same question, Justice Department spokesperson Laura Sweeney declined to comment on the department’s behalf.

Davis, whom President Obama once called “our diplomat,” was charged with murder after he shot dead two motorcyclists the contractor said were trying to rob him while he drove through Lahore in broad daylight. The United States claimed diplomatic immunity for Davis, although it later emerged that his direct employer was the CIA, for which he performed security functions in Lahore.

The administration demanded his release and temporarily cancelled high-level contacts with the Pakistan government.

Davis was eventually let go in March, after $2.3 million in traditional “blood money” was paid to the victims’ families. In a statement at the time of the release, the US ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, said that the families had “pardoned” Davis and expressed regret for the killings on behalf of the US government.

“I can confirm that the United States Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the incident in Lahore,” Munter said.

In a May 26 letter to Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Mary Ellen Warlow, director of the Criminal Division of Justice Department’s international affairs office, said that the department was “currently investigating” the Lahore shooting and requested that Pakistan “take steps to preserve all evidence relating to these events” and set up a liaison officer at the embassy to handle the matter. That, Pakistan says, is the last it heard.

And it was the last anyone heard of Davis, until an altercation outside the Colorado bagel shop last Friday. According to court documents, Davis was formally charged Tuesday with felony second-degree assault and misdemeanor disorderly conduct, the Associated Press reported.

In the Castle Rock, Colo. courtroom, Senior Deputy District Attorney Rich Orman mentioned the Pakistan shooting while asking a county judge to forbid Davis from carrying a firearm while free on bail, the AP said. Orman said he wanted to avoid another situation where there could be “potential lack of judgment.”

Davis attorney William Frankfurt called the two incidents “miles and worlds apart” and said that the Pakistan shooting had taken place in a “war zone” while Davis was performing duties for the US government.

Davis, a former Special Operations soldier, told the judge that he was “not carrying” at the moment, but needed a weapon for his work as a firearms instructor. The judge agreed he could use firearms at his work in the Washington area and released him on $10,000 bail.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2011.