GREAT CH…..ry sir………!
you just take a program between SHumaila’s relitves and our govt.
Armaghan
Ab dakhna yah hy k suprem cort ic bat ka notic kun ni lya?? kya yah din dakhne k ly hum ne adlyia ko azzad kraya tha ???wakilon se tu yah azzad hone wali ni thi. yah tu public k zoor se azzad howi hy .. media kahan hy?khadime ala kahan hy ? chef justis ka han hy ? ali ahmad kurd kahan hy ? atzaz ahsan kahan hy ?wher r th polititions? or jahi hukmaran ?
Abid from kuwait
Sir, Jee shamiyla bibi ne jo kiya us ka zemdar koon hia us ka zemedar hai Asif Zardari kion ke wo USA ka bada chamcha hai i mean spoon.
Abid from kuwait
Sir, Jee Shamyla bibi ne jo kiya us ka zemdar koon hia? us ka zemedar hai Asif Zardari kion ke wo USA ka bada chamcha hai i mean big spoon. aghar wo chahta to ab tak iss case ke fisla ho jata.
mohammad javaid iqbal
assalam o alakum javed sb jis mulk ma adaltain bikti ho jis mulk k insaff karny waly bikty ho jis mulk k hukmran america k hukum k muntazir rehty ho us mulk ma khud kushi he ho g aur kia ho sakta hi
AOA,
I think every line of your column is showing the reality of our judicial system.But our Chief Justice is playing a vital role to set an example..God bless him and you as well……….
Ali Rizam
I am your great fan and love the way you write your articles but do you think that everyone in Pakistan perceive your criticism as it is you want to convey to the rulers?? I think majority of us does not have the capacity to understand your meaning so I request you to please don’t write in such a way that aggrieved party get hurted by your words and agree to commit suicide. We understand that there is no justice in Pakistan and we should fight against system and rulers but not on the cost of poor public.
Sanaullah
Assalam o alaikom
Javed Sb..
We are not a nation, we are just a crowd.
We are divided in pathan,sindhi,punjabi and balochi. We are just a crowd and nothingelse.
Ahmed
Phir ye Awam on the spot Nhi jalaye gi aisay logon ko?
us waqt say darna chahiye. toba toba.
haseeb akram
where we are is not important but where are we going is very important. Ministers and upper class cant understand the sucidal attempt whether it is from poor people like shamyla or Islamic extremists. did somebody see the last talk (faryad) of Shaymla? it crush the hearts! i think we are going to bloody Inkalaab. Allah May help us and Pakistan.
Akram Malik
Sir
it is indeed a very sad and sorry state of affairs. We cannot call that we have democracy in Pakistan. There is no justice for the common man. In Pakistan justice is a privilege not a right. Unless now we follow the lead of Tunisia and Egypt we are doomed to be the servants of the feudal lords and masters. It is about time we as a nation stand up for the rights of the common man and woman.
As I see it the black coats started a revolution but the political bandwagon for the parties have made sure that it comes to nothing. All our political masters without exception take orders from the US and follow the dictates.
Dear Javed Chaudhary Sahib, I am quite in agreement with your views except the device adopted by Shamila, wife of Faheem deceased. At least a wisemanlike Javaid Chaudhary should not have opted to write that Shamila had saved herself from agony by committing suicide. This is not a solution to the problem. Although Americans are exerting pressure upon our government to let free Raymond Davis but the Government has already declared that the decision will be made by the courts. If any attempt will be made to let free Raymod Davis, definitely it will prove suicide for the government as the people of Pakistan are not ready to let free Raymond Davis through any other process and they intended justice from the courts of law in Pakistan.
Rana Shahzad
salaam J avid Ch Sb
definitely you are right.your view and thinking are based on reality because in our country justice is not equal for all.i ask the govt ramid Davis is the killer, why he facilitate him like his foods comes from hotel.
i ask more govt that he gives other Pakistani prisoners same facility if answer in no then why good facility is provided to foreigner killer.
secondly, j avid Sb the Shamaila death come to show because this case is famous otherwise in our country thousands incidents happened like this but those can,t appear because neither govt nor media give coverage other cases like belong to poor family.
in the end, i say INS HA-ALLAH now judiciary and media is free and peoples are also having more knowledge than before now +ive change will come.
i request to govt and media to play his role in this case because this case links with our country sovereignty,dignity, for that, this is our responsibility of everyone that we fulfill this
we pray for Shamaila, May God give him rest peace in heaven ameen
Kashif Jafri
You are right with your words sir, and i just want to assure you if davis will be released then the Govt officials, policemen who given him protection, Asif Ali Zardari, the lawyer of davis and the American Embassy will face the explosion..
much more than what was experienced in iran in 1979.
everyone will be killed, i assure you. Inshallah
amir jafri
The Deepening Mystery of Raymond Davis and Two Slain Pakistani Motorcyclists
By DAVE LINDORFF
The mystery of American Raymond A. Davis, currently imprisoned in the custody of local police in Lahore, Pakistan and charged with the Jan. 27 murder of two young men, whom he allegedly shot eight times with pinpoint accuracy through his car windshield, is growing increasingly murky. Also growing is the anger among Pakistanis that the US is trying to spring him from a Punjab jail by claiming diplomatic immunity. On Feb. 4, there were massive demonstrations, especially in Lahore, demanding that Davis be held for trial, an indication of the level of public anger at talk of granting him immunity.
Davis (whose identity was first denied and later confirmed by the US Embassy in Islamabad), and the embassy have claimed that he was hired as an employee of a US security company called Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, which was said to be located at 5100 North Lane in Orlando, Florida. Business cards for Hyperion were found on Davis by arresting officers.
However CounterPunch has investigated and discovered the following information:
First, there is not and never has been any such company located at the 5100 North Lane address. It is only an empty storefront, with empty shelves along one wall and an empty counter on the opposite wall, with just a lone used Coke cup sitting on it. A leasing agency sign is on the window. A receptionist at the IB Green & Associates rental agency located in Leesburg, Florida, said that her agency, which handles the property, part of a desolate-looking strip mall of mostly empty storefronts, has never leased to a Hyperion Protective Consultants. She added, “In fact, until recently, we had for several years occupied that address ourselves.”
The Florida Secretary of State’s office, meanwhile, which requires all Florida companies, including LLSs (limited liability partnerships), to register, has no record, current or lapsed, of a Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, and there is only one company with the name Hyperion registered at all in the state. It is Hyperion Communications, a company based in W. Palm Beach, that has no connection with Davis or with security-related activities.
The non-existent Hyperion Protective Consultants does have a website (www.hyperion-protective.com), but one of the phone numbers listed doesn’t work, an 800 number produces a recorded answer offering information about how to deal with or fend off bank foreclosures, and a third number with an Orlando exchange goes to a recording giving Hyperion’s corporate name and asking the caller to leave a message. Efforts to contact anyone on that line were unsuccessful. The local phone company says there is no public listing for Hyperion Protective Consultants–a rather unusual situation for a legitimate business operation.
Pakistani journalists have been speculating that Davis is either a CIA agent or is working as a contractor for some private mercenary firm–possibly Xe, the reincarnation of Blackwater. They are not alone in their suspicions. Jeff Stein, writing in the Washington Post on January 27, suggested after interviewing Fred Burton, a veteran of the State Department’s counter-terrorism Security Service, that Davis may have been involved in intelligence activity, either as a CIA employee under embassy cover or as a contract worker at the time of the shootings. Burton, who currently works with Stratfor, an Austin, TX-based “global intelligence” firm, even speculates that the shootings may have been a “spy meeting gone awry,” and not, as US Embassy and State Department officials are claiming, a case of an attempted robbery or car-jacking.
Even the information about what actually transpired is sketchy at this point. American media reports have Davis driving in Mozang, a busy commercial section of Lahore, and being approached by two threatening men on motorcycles. The US says he fired in self-defense, through his windshield with his Beretta pistol, remarkably hitting both men four times and killing both. He then exited his car and photographed both victims with his cell phone, before being arrested by local Lahore police. Davis, 36, reportedly a former Special Forces officer, was promptly jailed on two counts of murder, and despite protests by the US Embassy and the State Department that he is a “consular official” responsible for “security,” he continues to be held pending trial.
What has not been reported in the US media, but which reporter Shaukat Qadir of the Pakistani Express Tribune, says has been stated by Lahore police authorities, is that the two dead motorcyclists were each shot two times, “probably the fatal shots,” in the back by Davis. They were also both shot twice from the front. Such ballistics don’t mesh nicely with a protestation of self-defense.
Also left unmentioned in the US media is what else was found in Davis’ possession. Lahore police say that in addition to the Beretta he was still holding, and three cell phones retrieved from his pockets, they found a loaded Glock pistol in his car, along with three full magazines, and a “small telescope.” Again, heavy arms for a consular security officer not even in the act of guarding any embassy personnel, and what’s with the telescope? Also unmentioned in US accounts: his car was not an embassy vehicle, but was a local rental car.
American news reports say that a “consular vehicle” sped to Davis’ aid after the shooting incident and killed another motorcyclist enroute, before speeding away. The driver of that car is being sought by Lahore prosecutors but has not been identified or produced by US Embassy officials. According to Lahore police, however, the car in question, rather than coming to Davis’s aid, actually had been accompanying Davis’s sedan, and when the shooting happened, it “sped away,” killing the third motorcyclist as it raced off. Again a substantially different story that raises more questions about what this drive into the Mozang district was all about.
Davis has so far not said why he was driving, heavily armed, without anyone else in his vehicle, in a private rental car in a business section of Lahore where foreign embassy staff would not normally be seen. He is reportedly remaining silent and is leaving all statements to the US Embassy.
The US claim that Davis has diplomatic immunity hinges first and foremost on whether he is actually a “functionary” of the consulate. According to Lahore police investigators, he was arrested carrying a regular US passport, which had a business visa, not a diplomatic visa. The US reportedly only later supplied a diplomatic passport carrying a diplomatic visa that had been obtained not in the US before his departure, but in Islamabad, the country’s capital.
(Note: It is not unusual, though it is not publicly advertised, for the US State Department to issue duplicate passports to certain Americans. When I was working for Business Week magazine in Hong Kong in the early 1990s, and was dispatched often into China on reporting assignments, my bureau chief advised me that I could take a letter signed by her to the US Consulate in Hong Kong and request a second passport. One would be used exclusively to enter China posing as a tourist. The other would be used for going in officially as a journalist. The reason for this subterfuge, which was supported by the State Department, was that once Chinese visa officials have spotted a Chinese “journalist” visa stamped in a passport, they would never again allow that person to enter the country without first obtaining such a visa. The problem is that a journalist visa places strict limits on a reporter’s independent travel and access to sources. As a tourist, however, the same reporter could – illegally — travel freely and report without being accompanied by meddling foreign affairs office “handlers.”)
Considerable US pressure is currently being brought to bear on the Pakistani national government to hand over Davis to the US, and the country’s Interior Minister yesterday issued a statement accepting that Davis was a consular official as claimed by the US. But Punjab state authorities are not cooperating, and so far the national government is saying it is up to local authorities and the courts to decide whether his alleged crime of murder would, even if he is a legitimate consular employee, override a claim of diplomatic immunity.
Under Pakistani law, only actual consular functionaries, not service workers at embassy and consulate, have diplomatic status. Furthermore, no immunity would apply in the case of “serious” crimes–and certainly murder is as serious as it gets.
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. Those reporters should check the actual document.
Section II, Article 41 of the treaty, in its first paragraph regarding the “Personal inviolability of consular officers,” states:
“Consular officers shall not be liable to arrest or detention pending trial, except in the case of a grave crime and pursuant to a decision by the competent judicial authority.”
In other words, the prosecutorial, police and 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.
There is also the matter of double standards. The US routinely violates the Vienna Diplomatic Accord that governs international diplomatic rights. For example, the same convention requires countries that arrest, jail and prosecute foreigners for crimes to promptly notify the person’s home country embassy, and to grant that embassy the right to provide legal counsel. Yet the US has arrested, charged with murder, and executed many foreign nationals without ever notifying their embassies of their legal jeopardy, and has, on a number of occasions, even gone ahead with executions after a convict’s home country has learned of the situation and requested a stay and a retrial with an embassy-provided defense attorney. The US, in 1997, also prosecuted, over the objections of the government of Georgia, a Georgian embassy diplomat charged with the murder of a 16-year-old girl.
Apparently diplomatic immunity has more to do with the relative power of the government in question and of the embassy in question than with the simple words in a treaty.
It remains to be seen whether Davis will ever actually stand trial in Pakistan. The US is pushing hard in Islamabad for his release. On the other hand, his arrest and detention, and the pressure by the US Embassy to spring him, are leading to an outpouring of rage among Pakistanis at a very volatile time, with the Middle East facing a wave of popular uprisings against US-backed autocracies, and with Pakistan itself, increasingly a powder keg, being bombed by US rocket-firing pilotless drone aircraft.
Some Pakistani publications, meanwhile, are speculating that Davis, beyond simple spying, may have been involved in subversive activities in the country, possibly linked to the wave of terror bombings that have been destabilizing the central government. They note that both of the slain motorcyclists (the third dead man appears to have been an innocent victim of the incident) were themselves armed with pistols, though neither had apparently drawn his weapon.
A State Department official, contacted by Counterpunch, refused to provide any details about the nature of Davis’ employment, or to offer an explanation for Hyperion Protective Consultants LLC’s fictitious address, and its lack of registration with the Florida Secretary of State’s office.
Davis is currently scheduled for a court date on Feb. 11 to consider the issue of whether or not he has immunity from prosecution.
Dave Lindorff, a frequent contributor to Counterpunch, is the founder of the online alternative newspaper ThisCantBeHapp
Tajammal Awan
Dear Ch Sab!
it is media’s responsibilty to bring all victom’s families at chanels . So that people can well understand who were these inocent boys?
And what happend with them?
And what is happening with their families now?
hussain
rana sahib ji
ye sab DOGI MUSHARIF Ka kia dhra haye….es harmi ne nahi maloom pakistan se kon sa badla lena taha ke pakistan ko jhanam bana kr khod nikle giya….ALLAH SE DOVA KE es DOGI musharif ka jis jis ne bhi saath diya haye ALLAH on sb ko esi moot naseeb kre ke jab moot ki dova bhi kre tu en ko moot bi na aye….ameen
yehi kuch molk main 60 saal se ho rha hain…
kash koi asa inkalab hota ke jis main en sb vadero or demcrates ko chorahoo pe latka dia jata….or en ki nasloo ko bi….jab tk ye zinda hain pakistan ka kuch bhi nahi ho skta….vaderaizm,,,,nokershayi,,,bussinesman mafia,,,media ke behaye,,,,koi ek bi nahi jo es srzameen ko pak kr pakistan banana chahta ho?????
Faisal Jamal Khan
Taliban ka Insaaf sahi thaa is ka matlab hay … sach hay kay Pakistan may Revolution ani chahiyee.. jis may har cheez ko badalna hoga…
janmuhammad
Feb 09, 2011
I am sorry to say that you not apprise the public of the facts in relation to Davis case, and are just riding on the popular bandwagon in order to increase rating of your Talkshows. Many other TV anchors are also doing the same thing. Not only in this case, you try to mislead the people on every other issue, be it RGST, Blasphemy law, and provincial issues. This is like last days of Abbasids Caliphate of islam when the only job of intellectuals was to hype petty issues and create public hysteria. You are a selfish person who just want to become popular and by the power of your pen you are taking this country to a blind alley, like many other media persons. Reality will be dawned upon the people when everything wud have been lost. Already |Paliostan is a fragile state ethnically, institutionally, and due to mutually destructive conflicts of different segments of society. All of this is further aggravated by irresponsible and popularity-hungry media persons like you. You will stand before bar of history and will have to answer your deeds. Trust me.
AOA. JAved shahib r u fine? I Will Hope You R Fine & GOD bless u i will pray for u
sir ye jo hamare mulk mai drame bazi ho rahi hai mai to kehta ho k allah hamare hukmaranoo ko hadayat de de (Ameen)
Mukhtara ali
student hon any advice
Zahid Ahtsham
javed choudhry sab….this time media can play a vital role to wake up the crowd (i mean nation). and start struggle against american touts…Hame insaf chaye…..khoon ka badla khoon..khoon chaye.
najmuddin
SIR JEE APP INFIRADI MAMLAT PAR APNA TIME BARBAD NA KIA KARAAN.
HAZAROON LOGOON KA MASAIL KO EXPOSE KARNA CHAHIA.
MASLAN PAKISTAN KI 63 SAAL KI HISTORY MA PAHLI MARTABA PTCL PENSIONER KI PENSION MA AZAFA NAHEEN MILA. YA HAZAROON BABAS LOOG HAAN.
nazar muhammad.
ch sahib kahan gai wo aitezaz ahsan aur baqi sare wakeel leader jo aap ke channels pe aa ke kehte the chief justic bahaal hoga to insaaf mile ga. rozgar mile ga.laikin koi mfaraq nahi para. aur usi tarha nainsaafi ho rahi hai. ptcl pensioners ke sath na insaafi ki gai hai. kisi ne saath nahi dia.allah kare is mulk main insaaf mil sake. from nazar muhammad p.t.c.l retd employee. lalamusa.
farhan gondal
sir plz role of media par column likhen plzzzzzzzzz.
Shakeel Ahmed Safi
Feb 09, 2011
I am sorry to say that you not apprise the public of the facts in relation to Davis case, and are just riding on the popular bandwagon in order to increase rating of your Talkshows. Many other TV anchors are also doing the same thing. Not only in this case, you try to mislead the people on every other issue, be it RGST, Blasphemy law, and provincial issues. This is like last days of Abbasids Caliphate of islam when the only job of intellectuals was to hype petty issues and create public hysteria. You are a selfish person who just want to become popular and by the power of your pen you are taking this country to a blind alley, like many other media persons. Reality will be dawned upon the people when everything wud have been lost. Already |Paliostan is a fragile state ethnically, institutionally, and due to mutually destructive conflicts of different segments of society. All of this is further aggravated by irresponsible and popularity-hungry media persons like you. You will stand before bar of history and will have to answer your deeds. Trust me.
Nice words
GREAT CH…..ry sir………!
you just take a program between SHumaila’s relitves and our govt.
Ab dakhna yah hy k suprem cort ic bat ka notic kun ni lya?? kya yah din dakhne k ly hum ne adlyia ko azzad kraya tha ???wakilon se tu yah azzad hone wali ni thi. yah tu public k zoor se azzad howi hy .. media kahan hy?khadime ala kahan hy ? chef justis ka han hy ? ali ahmad kurd kahan hy ? atzaz ahsan kahan hy ?wher r th polititions? or jahi hukmaran ?
Sir, Jee shamiyla bibi ne jo kiya us ka zemdar koon hia us ka zemedar hai Asif Zardari kion ke wo USA ka bada chamcha hai i mean spoon.
Sir, Jee Shamyla bibi ne jo kiya us ka zemdar koon hia? us ka zemedar hai Asif Zardari kion ke wo USA ka bada chamcha hai i mean big spoon. aghar wo chahta to ab tak iss case ke fisla ho jata.
assalam o alakum javed sb jis mulk ma adaltain bikti ho jis mulk k insaff karny waly bikty ho jis mulk k hukmran america k hukum k muntazir rehty ho us mulk ma khud kushi he ho g aur kia ho sakta hi
AOA,
I think every line of your column is showing the reality of our judicial system.But our Chief Justice is playing a vital role to set an example..God bless him and you as well……….
I am your great fan and love the way you write your articles but do you think that everyone in Pakistan perceive your criticism as it is you want to convey to the rulers?? I think majority of us does not have the capacity to understand your meaning so I request you to please don’t write in such a way that aggrieved party get hurted by your words and agree to commit suicide. We understand that there is no justice in Pakistan and we should fight against system and rulers but not on the cost of poor public.
Assalam o alaikom
Javed Sb..
We are not a nation, we are just a crowd.
We are divided in pathan,sindhi,punjabi and balochi. We are just a crowd and nothingelse.
Phir ye Awam on the spot Nhi jalaye gi aisay logon ko?
us waqt say darna chahiye. toba toba.
where we are is not important but where are we going is very important. Ministers and upper class cant understand the sucidal attempt whether it is from poor people like shamyla or Islamic extremists. did somebody see the last talk (faryad) of Shaymla? it crush the hearts! i think we are going to bloody Inkalaab. Allah May help us and Pakistan.
Sir
it is indeed a very sad and sorry state of affairs. We cannot call that we have democracy in Pakistan. There is no justice for the common man. In Pakistan justice is a privilege not a right. Unless now we follow the lead of Tunisia and Egypt we are doomed to be the servants of the feudal lords and masters. It is about time we as a nation stand up for the rights of the common man and woman.
As I see it the black coats started a revolution but the political bandwagon for the parties have made sure that it comes to nothing. All our political masters without exception take orders from the US and follow the dictates.
Dear Javed Chaudhary Sahib, I am quite in agreement with your views except the device adopted by Shamila, wife of Faheem deceased. At least a wisemanlike Javaid Chaudhary should not have opted to write that Shamila had saved herself from agony by committing suicide. This is not a solution to the problem. Although Americans are exerting pressure upon our government to let free Raymond Davis but the Government has already declared that the decision will be made by the courts. If any attempt will be made to let free Raymod Davis, definitely it will prove suicide for the government as the people of Pakistan are not ready to let free Raymond Davis through any other process and they intended justice from the courts of law in Pakistan.
salaam J avid Ch Sb
definitely you are right.your view and thinking are based on reality because in our country justice is not equal for all.i ask the govt ramid Davis is the killer, why he facilitate him like his foods comes from hotel.
i ask more govt that he gives other Pakistani prisoners same facility if answer in no then why good facility is provided to foreigner killer.
secondly, j avid Sb the Shamaila death come to show because this case is famous otherwise in our country thousands incidents happened like this but those can,t appear because neither govt nor media give coverage other cases like belong to poor family.
in the end, i say INS HA-ALLAH now judiciary and media is free and peoples are also having more knowledge than before now +ive change will come.
i request to govt and media to play his role in this case because this case links with our country sovereignty,dignity, for that, this is our responsibility of everyone that we fulfill this
we pray for Shamaila, May God give him rest peace in heaven ameen
You are right with your words sir, and i just want to assure you if davis will be released then the Govt officials, policemen who given him protection, Asif Ali Zardari, the lawyer of davis and the American Embassy will face the explosion..
much more than what was experienced in iran in 1979.
everyone will be killed, i assure you. Inshallah
The Deepening Mystery of Raymond Davis and Two Slain Pakistani Motorcyclists
By DAVE LINDORFF
The mystery of American Raymond A. Davis, currently imprisoned in the custody of local police in Lahore, Pakistan and charged with the Jan. 27 murder of two young men, whom he allegedly shot eight times with pinpoint accuracy through his car windshield, is growing increasingly murky. Also growing is the anger among Pakistanis that the US is trying to spring him from a Punjab jail by claiming diplomatic immunity. On Feb. 4, there were massive demonstrations, especially in Lahore, demanding that Davis be held for trial, an indication of the level of public anger at talk of granting him immunity.
Davis (whose identity was first denied and later confirmed by the US Embassy in Islamabad), and the embassy have claimed that he was hired as an employee of a US security company called Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, which was said to be located at 5100 North Lane in Orlando, Florida. Business cards for Hyperion were found on Davis by arresting officers.
However CounterPunch has investigated and discovered the following information:
First, there is not and never has been any such company located at the 5100 North Lane address. It is only an empty storefront, with empty shelves along one wall and an empty counter on the opposite wall, with just a lone used Coke cup sitting on it. A leasing agency sign is on the window. A receptionist at the IB Green & Associates rental agency located in Leesburg, Florida, said that her agency, which handles the property, part of a desolate-looking strip mall of mostly empty storefronts, has never leased to a Hyperion Protective Consultants. She added, “In fact, until recently, we had for several years occupied that address ourselves.”
The Florida Secretary of State’s office, meanwhile, which requires all Florida companies, including LLSs (limited liability partnerships), to register, has no record, current or lapsed, of a Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, and there is only one company with the name Hyperion registered at all in the state. It is Hyperion Communications, a company based in W. Palm Beach, that has no connection with Davis or with security-related activities.
The non-existent Hyperion Protective Consultants does have a website (www.hyperion-protective.com), but one of the phone numbers listed doesn’t work, an 800 number produces a recorded answer offering information about how to deal with or fend off bank foreclosures, and a third number with an Orlando exchange goes to a recording giving Hyperion’s corporate name and asking the caller to leave a message. Efforts to contact anyone on that line were unsuccessful. The local phone company says there is no public listing for Hyperion Protective Consultants–a rather unusual situation for a legitimate business operation.
Pakistani journalists have been speculating that Davis is either a CIA agent or is working as a contractor for some private mercenary firm–possibly Xe, the reincarnation of Blackwater. They are not alone in their suspicions. Jeff Stein, writing in the Washington Post on January 27, suggested after interviewing Fred Burton, a veteran of the State Department’s counter-terrorism Security Service, that Davis may have been involved in intelligence activity, either as a CIA employee under embassy cover or as a contract worker at the time of the shootings. Burton, who currently works with Stratfor, an Austin, TX-based “global intelligence” firm, even speculates that the shootings may have been a “spy meeting gone awry,” and not, as US Embassy and State Department officials are claiming, a case of an attempted robbery or car-jacking.
Even the information about what actually transpired is sketchy at this point. American media reports have Davis driving in Mozang, a busy commercial section of Lahore, and being approached by two threatening men on motorcycles. The US says he fired in self-defense, through his windshield with his Beretta pistol, remarkably hitting both men four times and killing both. He then exited his car and photographed both victims with his cell phone, before being arrested by local Lahore police. Davis, 36, reportedly a former Special Forces officer, was promptly jailed on two counts of murder, and despite protests by the US Embassy and the State Department that he is a “consular official” responsible for “security,” he continues to be held pending trial.
What has not been reported in the US media, but which reporter Shaukat Qadir of the Pakistani Express Tribune, says has been stated by Lahore police authorities, is that the two dead motorcyclists were each shot two times, “probably the fatal shots,” in the back by Davis. They were also both shot twice from the front. Such ballistics don’t mesh nicely with a protestation of self-defense.
Also left unmentioned in the US media is what else was found in Davis’ possession. Lahore police say that in addition to the Beretta he was still holding, and three cell phones retrieved from his pockets, they found a loaded Glock pistol in his car, along with three full magazines, and a “small telescope.” Again, heavy arms for a consular security officer not even in the act of guarding any embassy personnel, and what’s with the telescope? Also unmentioned in US accounts: his car was not an embassy vehicle, but was a local rental car.
American news reports say that a “consular vehicle” sped to Davis’ aid after the shooting incident and killed another motorcyclist enroute, before speeding away. The driver of that car is being sought by Lahore prosecutors but has not been identified or produced by US Embassy officials. According to Lahore police, however, the car in question, rather than coming to Davis’s aid, actually had been accompanying Davis’s sedan, and when the shooting happened, it “sped away,” killing the third motorcyclist as it raced off. Again a substantially different story that raises more questions about what this drive into the Mozang district was all about.
Davis has so far not said why he was driving, heavily armed, without anyone else in his vehicle, in a private rental car in a business section of Lahore where foreign embassy staff would not normally be seen. He is reportedly remaining silent and is leaving all statements to the US Embassy.
The US claim that Davis has diplomatic immunity hinges first and foremost on whether he is actually a “functionary” of the consulate. According to Lahore police investigators, he was arrested carrying a regular US passport, which had a business visa, not a diplomatic visa. The US reportedly only later supplied a diplomatic passport carrying a diplomatic visa that had been obtained not in the US before his departure, but in Islamabad, the country’s capital.
(Note: It is not unusual, though it is not publicly advertised, for the US State Department to issue duplicate passports to certain Americans. When I was working for Business Week magazine in Hong Kong in the early 1990s, and was dispatched often into China on reporting assignments, my bureau chief advised me that I could take a letter signed by her to the US Consulate in Hong Kong and request a second passport. One would be used exclusively to enter China posing as a tourist. The other would be used for going in officially as a journalist. The reason for this subterfuge, which was supported by the State Department, was that once Chinese visa officials have spotted a Chinese “journalist” visa stamped in a passport, they would never again allow that person to enter the country without first obtaining such a visa. The problem is that a journalist visa places strict limits on a reporter’s independent travel and access to sources. As a tourist, however, the same reporter could – illegally — travel freely and report without being accompanied by meddling foreign affairs office “handlers.”)
Considerable US pressure is currently being brought to bear on the Pakistani national government to hand over Davis to the US, and the country’s Interior Minister yesterday issued a statement accepting that Davis was a consular official as claimed by the US. But Punjab state authorities are not cooperating, and so far the national government is saying it is up to local authorities and the courts to decide whether his alleged crime of murder would, even if he is a legitimate consular employee, override a claim of diplomatic immunity.
Under Pakistani law, only actual consular functionaries, not service workers at embassy and consulate, have diplomatic status. Furthermore, no immunity would apply in the case of “serious” crimes–and certainly murder is as serious as it gets.
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. Those reporters should check the actual document.
Section II, Article 41 of the treaty, in its first paragraph regarding the “Personal inviolability of consular officers,” states:
“Consular officers shall not be liable to arrest or detention pending trial, except in the case of a grave crime and pursuant to a decision by the competent judicial authority.”
In other words, the prosecutorial, police and 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.
There is also the matter of double standards. The US routinely violates the Vienna Diplomatic Accord that governs international diplomatic rights. For example, the same convention requires countries that arrest, jail and prosecute foreigners for crimes to promptly notify the person’s home country embassy, and to grant that embassy the right to provide legal counsel. Yet the US has arrested, charged with murder, and executed many foreign nationals without ever notifying their embassies of their legal jeopardy, and has, on a number of occasions, even gone ahead with executions after a convict’s home country has learned of the situation and requested a stay and a retrial with an embassy-provided defense attorney. The US, in 1997, also prosecuted, over the objections of the government of Georgia, a Georgian embassy diplomat charged with the murder of a 16-year-old girl.
Apparently diplomatic immunity has more to do with the relative power of the government in question and of the embassy in question than with the simple words in a treaty.
It remains to be seen whether Davis will ever actually stand trial in Pakistan. The US is pushing hard in Islamabad for his release. On the other hand, his arrest and detention, and the pressure by the US Embassy to spring him, are leading to an outpouring of rage among Pakistanis at a very volatile time, with the Middle East facing a wave of popular uprisings against US-backed autocracies, and with Pakistan itself, increasingly a powder keg, being bombed by US rocket-firing pilotless drone aircraft.
Some Pakistani publications, meanwhile, are speculating that Davis, beyond simple spying, may have been involved in subversive activities in the country, possibly linked to the wave of terror bombings that have been destabilizing the central government. They note that both of the slain motorcyclists (the third dead man appears to have been an innocent victim of the incident) were themselves armed with pistols, though neither had apparently drawn his weapon.
A State Department official, contacted by Counterpunch, refused to provide any details about the nature of Davis’ employment, or to offer an explanation for Hyperion Protective Consultants LLC’s fictitious address, and its lack of registration with the Florida Secretary of State’s office.
Davis is currently scheduled for a court date on Feb. 11 to consider the issue of whether or not he has immunity from prosecution.
Dave Lindorff, a frequent contributor to Counterpunch, is the founder of the online alternative newspaper ThisCantBeHapp
Dear Ch Sab!
it is media’s responsibilty to bring all victom’s families at chanels . So that people can well understand who were these inocent boys?
And what happend with them?
And what is happening with their families now?
rana sahib ji
ye sab DOGI MUSHARIF Ka kia dhra haye….es harmi ne nahi maloom pakistan se kon sa badla lena taha ke pakistan ko jhanam bana kr khod nikle giya….ALLAH SE DOVA KE es DOGI musharif ka jis jis ne bhi saath diya haye ALLAH on sb ko esi moot naseeb kre ke jab moot ki dova bhi kre tu en ko moot bi na aye….ameen
yehi kuch molk main 60 saal se ho rha hain…
kash koi asa inkalab hota ke jis main en sb vadero or demcrates ko chorahoo pe latka dia jata….or en ki nasloo ko bi….jab tk ye zinda hain pakistan ka kuch bhi nahi ho skta….vaderaizm,,,,nokershayi,,,bussinesman mafia,,,media ke behaye,,,,koi ek bi nahi jo es srzameen ko pak kr pakistan banana chahta ho?????
Taliban ka Insaaf sahi thaa is ka matlab hay … sach hay kay Pakistan may Revolution ani chahiyee.. jis may har cheez ko badalna hoga…
Feb 09, 2011
I am sorry to say that you not apprise the public of the facts in relation to Davis case, and are just riding on the popular bandwagon in order to increase rating of your Talkshows. Many other TV anchors are also doing the same thing. Not only in this case, you try to mislead the people on every other issue, be it RGST, Blasphemy law, and provincial issues. This is like last days of Abbasids Caliphate of islam when the only job of intellectuals was to hype petty issues and create public hysteria. You are a selfish person who just want to become popular and by the power of your pen you are taking this country to a blind alley, like many other media persons. Reality will be dawned upon the people when everything wud have been lost. Already |Paliostan is a fragile state ethnically, institutionally, and due to mutually destructive conflicts of different segments of society. All of this is further aggravated by irresponsible and popularity-hungry media persons like you. You will stand before bar of history and will have to answer your deeds. Trust me.
AOA. JAved shahib r u fine? I Will Hope You R Fine & GOD bless u i will pray for u
sir ye jo hamare mulk mai drame bazi ho rahi hai mai to kehta ho k allah hamare hukmaranoo ko hadayat de de (Ameen)
student hon any advice
javed choudhry sab….this time media can play a vital role to wake up the crowd (i mean nation). and start struggle against american touts…Hame insaf chaye…..khoon ka badla khoon..khoon chaye.
SIR JEE APP INFIRADI MAMLAT PAR APNA TIME BARBAD NA KIA KARAAN.
HAZAROON LOGOON KA MASAIL KO EXPOSE KARNA CHAHIA.
MASLAN PAKISTAN KI 63 SAAL KI HISTORY MA PAHLI MARTABA PTCL PENSIONER KI PENSION MA AZAFA NAHEEN MILA. YA HAZAROON BABAS LOOG HAAN.
ch sahib kahan gai wo aitezaz ahsan aur baqi sare wakeel leader jo aap ke channels pe aa ke kehte the chief justic bahaal hoga to insaaf mile ga. rozgar mile ga.laikin koi mfaraq nahi para. aur usi tarha nainsaafi ho rahi hai. ptcl pensioners ke sath na insaafi ki gai hai. kisi ne saath nahi dia.allah kare is mulk main insaaf mil sake. from nazar muhammad p.t.c.l retd employee. lalamusa.
sir plz role of media par column likhen plzzzzzzzzz.
Feb 09, 2011
I am sorry to say that you not apprise the public of the facts in relation to Davis case, and are just riding on the popular bandwagon in order to increase rating of your Talkshows. Many other TV anchors are also doing the same thing. Not only in this case, you try to mislead the people on every other issue, be it RGST, Blasphemy law, and provincial issues. This is like last days of Abbasids Caliphate of islam when the only job of intellectuals was to hype petty issues and create public hysteria. You are a selfish person who just want to become popular and by the power of your pen you are taking this country to a blind alley, like many other media persons. Reality will be dawned upon the people when everything wud have been lost. Already |Paliostan is a fragile state ethnically, institutionally, and due to mutually destructive conflicts of different segments of society. All of this is further aggravated by irresponsible and popularity-hungry media persons like you. You will stand before bar of history and will have to answer your deeds. Trust me.