Mystery of Davis & Two Slain Pakistani Motorcyclists

[Nordic]

Throw his ass under the bus. That's part of their job if they get caught, right?

Fuck him.

[jingofever]

Throw his ass under the bus. That's part of their job if they get caught, right?

Not if he has diplomatic immunity, which he does. Foreign Policy says:

Lethal Weapon 2 notwithstanding, host countries don't have much recourse against visiting diplomats who violate their laws. Just ask New York City, which has tried in vain for years to recoup millions of dollars in unpaid parking tickets from U.N. diplomats.

Even for serious crimes, the most a country can generally do is expel the offender. That's what Britain did in late January with Anil Verma -- a high ranking Indian diplomat in London who is accused of brutally assaulting his wife on multiple occasions. Verma is still an employee of the Indian Administrative Service, and it's not yet clear whether charges will be filed against him in India.

A diplomat's home country can waive his diplomatic immunity in particularly egregious cases. In 1997, Gueorgui Makharadze, formerly the second-highest-ranking diplomat at the Georgian Embassy in Washington, had his diplomatic immunity waived after he killed a Maryland teenager in a drunk driving accident. Makharadze had gotten out of a drunk-driving charge the previous year by claiming diplomatic immunity. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison and was later transferred to Georgia to finish his sentence.

If he was on the NOC list he would be thrown under the bus.

[seemslikeadream]

US official held in Pakistan 'is CIA'
An American official held in Pakistan after shooting dead two men is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time of the incident, according to reports.

Raymond Davis is escorted by police in Lahore Photo: REUTERS
By Our Foreign Staff 11:30PM GMT 20 Feb 2011
Raymond Davis, a US contractor, has been held for more than a fortnight accused of murder after admitting shooting dead two men in Lahore in self defence.
Despite the incident, the US has insisted he is entitled to diplomatic immunity, arguing that he is an "administrative and technical official" linked to its Lahore consulate.
Pakistan intelligence officials however believe that Davis, a former special forces soldier, is employed by the CIA.
"It's beyond a shadow of a doubt," one official told the Guardian.
Rana Sanaullah, the Punjab law minister, told the newspaper: "This is not the work of a diplomat. He was doing espionage and surveillance activities,"

The allegations came as a US drone attack on Sunday killed at least five militants in South Waziristan, the first such attack since Davis' arrest on January 27.

[Ben D]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27516.htm

On January 25th 2011, just two days before Davis shot and killed the two young Pakistanis, the US Embassy submitted a list of its diplomatic and non-diplomatic staff in Pakistan to the Pakistani Foreign Office (FO), as all foreign nations are required to do annually. The list included 48 names. Raymond Davis was not on the list. The day after Davis shot and killed the two Pakistanis, the US Embassy suddenly submitted a “revised” list to the Foreign Office which added Davis’ name!

When Pakistani police took Davis into custody on January 27th, he had on his person an ordinary American passport with a valid ordinary Pakistan visa, issued by the Pakistan Embassy in Washington. On January 28th, a member of the US Consulate wanted the Pakistani police to exchange that passport in Davis’ possession with another one. The fresh passport being offered was a diplomatic passport with a valid diplomatic visa dated sometime in 2009. This visa was stamped in Islamabad by the FO!

[JackRiddler]

.

So. Davis is Xe/Blackwater. Shot the guys 10 times, militating against self-defense claims.

From http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/fe ... blackwater

US gives fresh details of CIA agent who killed two men in Pakistan shootout

US reveals that CIA agent Raymond Davis worked for private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater


Ewen MacAskill and Declan Walsh
guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 February 2011 21.48 GMT


US officials have provided fresh details about Raymond Davis, the CIA agent at the centre of a diplomatic stand-off in Pakistan, including confirmation that he had worked for the private security contractor Xe, formerly known as Blackwater. They also disclosed for the first time that he had been providing security for a CIA team tracking militants.

Davis was attached to the CIA's Global Response Staff, whose duties include protecting case officers when they meet with sources. He was familiarising himself with a sensitive area of Lahore on the day he shot dead two Pakistanis.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and other media outlets reported for the first time that Davis is a CIA employee. They said they had been aware of his status but kept it under wraps at the request of US officials who said they feared for his safety if involvement with the spy agency was to come out. The officials claimed that he is at risk in the prison in Lahore. The officials released them from their obligation after the Guardian on Sunday reported that Davis was a CIA agent.

Davis shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore last month who he says had been trying to rob him. A third Pakistani man was killed by a car driven by Americans apparently on their way to rescue Davis.

Confirmation that he worked for Xe could prove even more problematic than working for the CIA, given the extent of hatred towards Blackwater, whose staff have gained a reputation in Pakistan as trigger-happy. For Pakistanis the word "Blackwater" has become a byword for covert American operations targeting the country's nuclear capability. Newspaper reports have been filled with lurid reports of lawless operatives roaming the country.

US officials have reiterated their concern about Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail where Davis is being held, saying he had been moved to a separate section of the prison, that the guards' guns had been taken away from for fear they might kill him, and that detainees had been previously killed by guards. They are also concerned about protesters storming the prison or that he might be poisoned, and that dogs were being used to taste or smell the food for poison.


However, the authorities in Pakistan stressed the stringent measures they have put in place to protect Davis in Kot Lakhpat following angry public rallies in which his effigy was burned and threats from extremist clerics.

Surveillance cameras are trained on his cell in an isolation wing, and a ring of paramilitary troops are posted outside. About 25 jihadi prisoners have been transferred to other facilities.

The revelations about Davis will complicate further the impasse between the US and Pakistan. Washington says he has diplomatic immunity and should be released but the Pakistan government is in a bind, facing the danger of a public backlash if it complies.

Until Sunday, the US had said Davis was a diplomat, doing technical and administrative work at the embassy. It says that because he has diplomatic immunity, he should be released immediately.

The Pakistani prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, told parliament on Monday he would safeguard the country's "sovereignty and dignity" as it sought to resolve the diplomatic impasse with the US. "We are firmly resolved to adopt a course that accords with the dictates of justice and the rule of law. My government will not compromise on Pakistan's sovereignty and dignity," said Gilani.

The CIA declined to comment but other US officials said Davis had been working from a safe house in Lahore and had been carrying out scouting and other reconnaissance mission for a task force of case officers and surveillance experts.

The Obama administration is exerting fierce pressure on Pakistan to release Davis. But President Asif Ali Zardari's government, faced with a wave of public outrage, has prevaricated on the issue, and says it cannot decide on immunity issue until 14 March. For many Pakistanis the case has come to represent their difficult relationship with the US, in which multibillion dollar aid packages are mingled with covert activities targeting Islamist extremists.

Davis is currently on Pakistan's "exit control list", meaning he cannot leave the country without permission. But the two men who came to his rescue in a jeep that knocked over and killed a motorcyclist are believed to have already fled the country. Davis claimed to be acting in self-defence, firing on a pair of suspected robbers. But eyebrows were raised when it emerged that he shot the men 10 times, one as he fled the scene.

Pakistani prosecutors say Davis used excessive force and have charged him with two counts of murder and one of illegal possession of a Glock 9mm pistol. There have also been claims that the dead men were working for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, with orders to follow Davis.

The military spy agency cooperates with the CIA in its tribal belt drone programme, but resents US intelligence collection elsewhere in the country.In spite of the lurid conspiracy tales in Pakistan about Blackwater, US officials say that in reality Blackwater has had two major contracts in Pakistan - loading missiles onto CIA drones at the secret Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, and supervising the construction of a police training facility in Peshawar. The Davis furore has not, however, stopped the controversial drone strike programme. News emerged of a fresh attack on a militant target in South Waziristan, the first in nearly one month. Pakistani intelligence officials told AP that foreigners were among the dead including three people from Turkmenistan and two Arabs.

And now for a really abbreviated and selective history... Mahmood who? Omar Saeed who?!

Rocky relations

The CIA and Pakistan's ISI have long had a rocky relationship. It started in the 1980s jihad, when the ISI funnelled billions of dollars in CIA-funded weapons to anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan.

But the two fell out in 2001 over CIA accusations that the ISI was playing a "double game" – attacking some Islamist militants while secretly supporting others.

In August 2008 the CIA deputy chief, Stephen Kappes, flew to Islamabad with evidence suggesting the ISI plotted the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed 54 people. The ISI, in turn, complained that the US came with unrealistic expectations and an aggressive attitude.

Yet at the same time the agencies co-operated closely, mostly on the CIA drone campaign against al-Qaida militants along the Afghan border.

In 2009 the ISI praised the CIA for killing the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. But recently things soured again. Last December the CIA station chief was forced to quit Pakistan after being publicly identified (US officials blamed an ISI leak); while Pakistani spies were angered that their chief, General Shuja Pasha, was named in a US lawsuit brought in a New York court by victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Declan Walsh

[Nordic]

So does he work for the CIA or Xe? How can he be an "agent" of the CIA and also an employee (private contractor) of Xe?

Or is there just no difference anymore? Has fascism gotten that far into the merger of the corporate world with the state?

[wallflower]

Mary at Emptywheel provides a very good legal breakdown in re claims of diplomatic immunity.http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/21/raymond-davis-diplomatic-immunity-v-us-impunity/

Was Davis validly attached to embassy staff? One thing that the US and Pakistan seem to agree upon is that there was some kind of an effort to place Davis with the Islamabad staff prior to his shoot out. His name was supposedly submitted to the foreign ministry on January 20, 2011. Then something happened. Perhaps someone noticed the similarity to the name of a deceased General, Raymond Gilbert Davis, but more likely there was something else going on.

In any event, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry didn’t go along with the designation of Davis from the US and apparently the US response was to pull him from the designated staff. On January 25, 2 days before the shooting, Davis’ name was not on a list of embassy staff submitted to the FM. It wasn’t until a day after the shooting that a new list was produced that included his name. And in the interim, the Pakistan FM was refusing to go along with the US designation that Davis was a diplomat assigned to the the embassy. After tremendous pressure from the US on many fronts, the FM, Qureshi, has now been replaced but he is still adamant (without giving details as to why) that Davis was not validly placed on embassy staff and has said he will testify if called upon.

Was Davis validly attached to the embassy? We don’t know – we don’t know the answer to questions such as Davis’ real name (if not Davis); what happened on January 20 when his name was submitted; whether he is military; whether he is a US national; whether he (under this or another name) was on a non grata list; or whether he is a member of a class of officials that are all barred, etc. And even if we did, it does get more complicated.

The whole piece is worth reading.

[8bitagent]

So does he work for the CIA or Xe? How can he be an "agent" of the CIA and also an employee (private contractor) of Xe?

Or is there just no difference anymore? Has fascism gotten that far into the merger of the corporate world with the state?

Nordic, for some time now the CIA has considered blackwater mercs "company men", under the employ of the CIA and vice versa.
A lot of those drone attacks in Pakistan had been joint CIA/blackwater operations. And when a Jordanian double agent killed 7 agents in an Afghan CIA base,
several turned out to be Xe employees...yet, the agency and media still considered them CIA.

[Stephen Morgan]

So does he work for the CIA or Xe? How can he be an "agent" of the CIA and also an employee (private contractor) of Xe?

Or is there just no difference anymore? Has fascism gotten that far into the merger of the corporate world with the state?

He's just one of the boys.

[Peachtree Pam]

This is from The Hindu....just to muddy the waters even more...one thing is sure: US really, really wants this guy back before he breaks under (enhanced) questioning.....




http://www.thehindu.com/news/internatio ... 481167.ece
ISLAMABAD, February 22, 2011


Davis has TTP links, says Pakistani media

A day after the American media began authoritatively referring to Raymond Davis — the U.S. embassy staffer arrested for gunning down two “armed” Pakistanis in “self-defence” in Lahore last month — as an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a section of the press in Pakistan reported he had close links with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

While Mr. Davis' cover got blown soon after the shooting incident on January 27 with the U.S. embassy changing its position on his job profile more than once, American media reports confirming him as a CIA operative have given credence to speculations in Pakistan that he was a spy. The new narrative is he was recruiting young people from Punjab for the Taliban as part of a plan to lend credibility to U.S. concern about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

With the Pakistan government remaining tight-lipped about the details of the case on the premise that the matter is sub-judice, the rumours have thickened as they spread and now family members of Mr. Davis' victims are complaining that they were being pressurised from both ends of the political spectrum. According to them, there is immense pressure from certain quarters of the political leadership to withdraw the case against Mr. Davis while others are telling them not to accept any compensation from the U.S.

[Peachtree Pam]

Here is a new angle from the Telegraph: he was acting head of CIA in Pakistan!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... istan.html


Raymond Davis 'was acting head of CIA in Pakistan'

A US intelligence agent arrested after shooting dead two men was the acting head of the CIA in Pakistan and had been gathering intelligence for drone attacks, according to intelligence sources.


Raymond Davis, a 36-year-old former special forces soldier, had taken command after the CIA station chief's cover was blown, according to reports.

American officials insist he is entitled to diplomatic immunity and that he be released immediately.

Davis has been held for almost a month in a Lahore prison while a court decides his status.

The case has provoked a surge in anti-American hostility and spawned a wave of conspiracy theories.

Many Pakistanis have questioned whether Davis was really the victim of an attempted robbery – as he told police – and exactly why he was driving around Lahore with a Glock handgun in a rented car.

This week it emerged that he was employed by the CIA and that he was engaged in an undercover operation.

On Tuesday The Nation newspaper, which has close links to Pakistan's military establishment, claimed one of his main tasks was to keep the CIA network intact in the tribal agencies, where al-Qaeda-linked militants maintain bases, and that he was familiar with their local languages.

Pakistan authorities say they recovered items including a make-up kit, long-range radio, a GPRS system and a camera containing photographs of sensitive locations.

Telephone records suggest he was in contact with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Pakistan Taliban in South Waziristan.

Even Pakistan's spies say they had no idea what Davis was doing in Lahore.

A senior intelligence source told The Daily Telegraph he was unknown to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate and was operating outside the normal agreements between the two countries.

"We want the US to come clean on what exactly he was up to," he said.

American officials initially said Mr Davis worked for the US consulate in Lahore before claiming he worked for the embassy in Islamabad, and was entitled to full immunity.

However, The New York Times on Monday reported that Davis was part of a CIA operation tracking Islamist extremists in eastern Pakistan, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, the virulently anti-Indian group blamed for the bloody 2008 siege of Mumbai.

Opposition politicians and relatives of Davis's victims said the government should address suspicions that he also worked for Xe, a US security firm formerly known as Blackwater.

"Davis deserves no pardon ... We knew from day one that he was working for the CIA and Blackwater," said Mohammad Waseem, brother of Mohammad Faheem.

[8bitagent]

Davis should be allowed free...ONLY AFTER the CIA is put on trial and held accountable for all the innocents murdered in CIA drone strikes.

Something very sinister and dark has been brewing in Pakistan. While all the coverage is on the North African uprisings, endless bomb blasts have wracked Peshawar and cities all over the region.
Looks like the Devil not only came to Mexico, but also has offices in Pakistan. I have always maintained Pakistan is one of the eyes of the storm and a flashpoint for the end times(sorry, "interesting" times that are heading our way)

[Nordic]

Well, what this means to me is that Xe is now the CIA's private mercenary Army.

Now that we didn't already know that, but now we KNOW that.

[chump]

FWIW:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... z1EkVNCVSM

Did Davis double-cross US as recruitment point man for Taliban?
TIMES NEWS NETWORK & AGENCIES, Feb 23, 2011, 08.09am IST

American official Raymond Davis, arrested for double murder, had "close links" with Taliban and was "instrumental" in recruiting youths for it, the media here claimed on Tuesday, close on the heels of reports in the US that he was a CIA agent tracking movements of terror groups like LeT.

The "close ties" of 37-year-old Davis, arrested in Lahore on January 27 for killing two men he claimed were trying to rob him, with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan came out during investigations, 'The Express Tribune' reported quoting an unnamed senior official of Punjab Police. "Davis was instrumental in recruiting young people from Punjab for the Taliban to fuel the bloody insurgency (in Pakistan)," the official said.

The report came a day after The NYT, citing US government officials , said that Davis "was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country."

Among the groups that Davis was keeping an eye on was the banned LeT, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the NYT said.

Meanwhile, a Pakistani court accepted the government's request to hold the trial of Davis in the heavilyguarded Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore , where he is currently lodged, for security reasons.

The Obama administration on Monday insisted that he still has diplomatic immunity under international law and Pakistan should release him forthwith . Soon after, the US state department wheeled out one of its "foremost experts in international law" to make the case that regardless of Davis' reported affiliation, he was entitled to diplomatic immunity because the US had clearly intimated to Pakistani government that he is a member of the administrative and technical staff under Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Sources also said that Pakistan had been told he is an intelligence operative working undercover.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF RAYMOND DAVIS
Pakistan & US are at loggerheads over the arrest of Davis, who is facing trial for gunning down two men in Lahore. The two sides differ on diplomatic immunity for Davis. Other disputed points in the case:

THE SHOOTING
Cops say Davis fired at the two motorcycle-borne men when they tried to stop his car; the duo were ostensibly chasing him after his vehicle bumped a rickshaw US says Davis believed his life was in danger after one of the men 'cocked his pistol and pointed towards' him

SELF-DEFENCE
Davis and US say he acted in self-defence after the two men tried to rob him at gunpoint
Punjab law minister says the weapon carried by one of the victims wasn't loaded and thus Davis can't claim selfdefence ; Lahore top cops says Davis fired at one of the men as they were fleeing

THE VICTIMS
Davis and US say the two men were robbers Pak media & politicians dismiss suggestions that the duo were ISI operatives and term them 'innocent youths' with no criminal record.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/cia-spy-davis- ... 3-452.html

"CIA spy" Davis was giving nuclear bomb material to Al-Qaeda, says report
By ANI | ANI – Sun, Feb 20, 2011 12:18 PM IST

London, Feb 20(ANI): Double murder-accused US official Raymond Davis has been found in possession of top-secret CIA documents, which point to him or the feared American Task Force 373 (TF373) operating in the region, providing Al-Qaeda terrorists with "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents," according to a report.

Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is warning that the situation on the sub-continent has turned "grave" as it appears that open warfare is about to break out between Pakistan and the United States, The European Union Times reports.

The SVR warned in its report that the apprehension of 36-year-old Davis, who shot dead two Pakistani men in Lahore last month, had fuelled this crisis.

According to the report, the combat skills exhibited by Davis, along with documentation taken from him after his arrest, prove that he is a member of US' TF373 black operations unit currently operating in the Afghan War Theatre and Pakistan's tribal areas, the paper said.

While the US insists that Davis is one of their diplomats, and the two men he killed were robbers, Pakistan says that the duo were ISI agents sent to follow him after it was discovered that he had been making contact with al Qaeda, after his cell phone was tracked to the Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan, the paper said.

The most ominous point in this SVR report is "Pakistan's ISI stating that top-secret CIA documents found in Davis's possession point to his, and/or TF373, providing to al Qaeda terrorists "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents", which they claim are to be used against the United States itself in order to ignite an all-out war in order to re-establish the West's hegemony over a Global economy that is warned is just months away from collapse," the paper added. (ANI)

[justdrew]

just another case of western "intelligence" operatives supporting "the terrorists" - our terrorists, who we NEED in order t o justify our bullshit military adventurism. Disgusting.