A CIA contractor was acquitted of two murder charges and released by a Pakistani court on Wednesday after a deal to pay “blood money” to the victims’ families, Pakistani and US officials said.
The deal, reached just hours after the US contractor had been indicted, ends a long-simmering diplomatic standoff between Pakistan and the US.
“The court first indicted him, but the families later told court that they had accepted the ‘blood money’ and they had pardoned him,” Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said.
“The court acquitted him in the murder case.”
Raymond Davis, 36, shot dead two Pakistanis in the eastern Punjab city of Lahore on Jan. 27 after what he described as an attempted armed robbery.
The US had repeatedly called for his release, saying he had diplomatic immunity.
“The families of the victims of the Jan. 27 incident in Lahore have pardoned Raymond Davis. I am grateful for their generosity,” US Ambassador Cameron Munter said. “I wish to express, once again, my regret for the incident.”
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking while on a trip to Cairo, said the US government did not pay any compensation to the families of the two Pakistanis.
Asked if the Pakistani -government had paid compensation, Clinton said: “You will have to ask the Pakistani government.”
A US official speaking on condition of anonymity said Davis was quickly flown out of Pakistan. Despite the reported payment of the “blood money,” he insisted there had been “no quid pro quo.”
A US national security official closely monitoring the Davis case and who declined to be identified said that if the Pakistani government paid the compensation it will likely seek reimbursement from the US government.
The case became a major test of relations with Pakistan, a vital ally in the US-led campaign against Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
It is also likely to have a lasting impact on how the US Congress, already suspicious of Pakistan’s commitment to defeating some militants groups in Afghanistan, views a government that is a major recipient of US military and civilian aid.
Republican lawmaker Dana Rohrabacher, a member of the party that controls the US House of Representatives, said the Davis case “should suggest we take a close look at the fundamentals of who we give our aid to and whether or not they are our friends, or whether they are treating us like suckers.”
However, CIA spokesman George Little said the resolution of the case showed that ties between the US and Pakistan are strong.
“That’s the sign of a healthy partnership — one that’s vital to both countries, especially as we face a common set of terrorist enemies,” he said.
The Pakistani -government runs the risk of a backlash.
Talat Masood, a retired general, said some groups in Pakistan could use the case to their advantage.
“Some elements will take advantage of it [such as] opposition parties, even if it’s only for rhetoric to gain points. With the religious parties and militant groups, they might use it to expand their reach.”
The country’s powerful religious parties had tried to block the deal, calling for Davis to be hanged and the families’ lawyer suggested they had been forced to sign the papers.
“We were put in detention for four hours and not allowed to meet our clients who were called by authorities to the court,” Asad Manzoor Butt, a lawyer for the family of one of the slain men said.
Religious parties condemned the release.
“We will protest against this. This is shameful and unfortunate,” a senior leader of the hardline Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami Amir-ul-Azeem said.
There had been speculation that a deal was in the works between the US and the families of the dead men, including a third killed when a US consulate vehicle struck him while trying to extract Davis from the scene.
Such payments are sanctioned by Islamic law and are common in some parts of rural Pakistan as a way to settle disputes.
The identity of the victims had been questioned from the outset, with some media reports saying the men worked for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Others have suggested they attempted to rob Davis.
The case also strained ties between the CIA and ISI, which said it was unaware Davis was working in Pakistan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing