Article 31(1) of Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 states
A diplomatic agent shall enjoy immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State. He shall also enjoy immunity from its civil and administrative jurisdiction, except in the case of: …….
Article 41(1) of the convention states
Without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.
Raymond Davis, an employee of the American Consulate in Lahore, shot dead two Pakistanis on Jan. 27, claiming that he had acted in self-defense. Davis, driving a white-color car, was later arrested as his car was stuck up in the traffic after his brazen attack. Another Pakistani was crushed to death by the U.S. consulate car, when it arrived at the scene for Davis help. The police registered a double-murder case against the U.S. national on the requests by families of the slain men. The police said the accused had also been charged for carrying illegal arms as he failed to show license for his pistol.
Davis had introduced himself to the police as Technical Advisor in the American Consulate in Lahore.
The Davis incident brings up many questions. Firstly, who IS Raymond Davis? Reports are still mixed. According to ABC News, Davis is a private security officer. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad calls Davis a "diplomat". The truth is anyone's guess. The U.S Embassy says Davis was "assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, has a U.S. diplomatic passport and Pakistani visa valid until June 2012." They have called for his release, saying that as a diplomat, Davis has immunity under the Vienna Convention. But on Sunday night, Dawn News, a local Urdu channel, broadcast what it says are images of Davis' passport -- which did not have a diplomatic visa.
Though the United States on Saturday formally requested diplomatic immunity for an American who killed two people before a large number of people, the US itself has not granted similar immunity to even senior diplomats of other countries involved in such cases in the US. In the 1997 case, Gueorgui Makharadze, the Georgian ambassador in Washington, had killed an American teenager in a road accident. The then US president Bill Clinton had flatly refused to grant diplomatic immunity to the Georgian diplomat and consequently Makharadze was sentenced to 21 years by a US court. Pakistan’s New York-based permanent representative to the UN, Munir Akram, got involved in a case involving his live-in girlfriend, he was not given diplomatic immunity. In a minor case of very little significance in 1982, a North Korean diplomat grabbed a woman’s breasts in a park in Eastchester, outside New York City and then took shelter in his country’s UN mission for 10 months before he finally pleaded guilty of a minor charge and then left the country. Minister Kamal Nath, a Congress Leader and a Indian Union Minister in the Government led by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, had sought diplomatic immunity who is an accused in the infamous Sikh Genocide of 1984. After being summoned by the US Court in 2010, he has been denied diplomatic immunity by US Department of State.
United States is equally hypocrite when its diplomats are involved in abuse of diplomatic immunity. An American Marine serving his embassy in Bucharest, Romania, collided with a taxi and killed the popular Romanian musician Teo Peter on December 3, 2004. Christopher Van Goethem, allegedly drunk, did not obey a traffic signal to stop, which resulted in the collision of his Ford Expedition with the taxi the rock star was travelling in. Van Goethem's blood alcohol content was estimated at 0.09% from a breathalyser test, but he refused to give a blood sample for further testing and left for Germany before charges could be filed in Romania. The Romanian government requested the American government lift his immunity, which it has refused to do. An American diplomat, Consul General Douglas Kent, stationed in Vladivostok, Russia, was involved in a car accident on October 27, 1998, that left a young man, Alexander Kashin, crippled. Kent was not prosecuted in a U.S. court. Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, diplomatic immunity does not apply to civil actions relating to vehicular accidents. However, on 10 August 2006, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that since he was using his own vehicle for consular purposes, Kent may not be sued civilly.
The hypocrisy of United States does not end with diplomats only, it extends to other diplomatic immunity areas as well. The biggest headache for the British authorities remains the collection of fines from diplomatic missions resulting from their refusal to pay the congestion charge for driving into the center of London. Embassies have clocked up fines totaling 36 million pounds (US$54 million), with the U.S. embassy alone owing 3.8 million pounds, the figures showed. UNITED NATIONS – Diplomatic immunity might allow foreign embassies to avoid paying parking fines. It’s nearly $18 million dollars, with the Top Ten worst offenders accounting for approximately $8 million of this staggering figure. Congressman Weiner said ““It’s insulting to all New Yorkers that countries like Yemen, Zimbabwe and Iran owe the City millions in unpaid parking tickets”.
The United States has had a history of being reluctant to pay its U.N. dues, with critics of the world body charging it has a bloated and sometimes corrupt bureaucracy. U.N. supporters say the dues are cheap at the price. The announcement about the reduction in U.S. arrears at the United Nations comes as U.S. Republicans threatened on Tuesday to use their new power as the majority in the House of Representatives to withhold funding for the world body, which they accused of waste and bias. The United States has paid off more than a third of the nearly $1.2 billion in payments it owed the United Nations at the end of last year.
Raymond Davis Incident - Same Happened Once in 1964
I am pasting below an excerpt from the Imam Khomeini's Speech that he delivered after a similar incident (referring to Raymond Davis Incident) took place in Iran - 1964. After the speech, which incited a lot of people, he was sent in exile in November the same year. I am sure you will be able to relate it with what has happened in Lahore.....
Khomeini's Speech Excerpts “The Granting of Capitaluatory Rights to the USA“ 27 October, 1964
.I cannot express the sorrow I feel in my heart Iran no longer has any festival to celebrate; they have turned our festival into mourning…They have sold us, they have sold our independence; but still they light up the city and dance The dignity of the Iranian Army has been trampled underfoot! A law has been put before the Majlis according to which we are to accede to the Vienna Convention, and a provision has been added to it that all American military advisers, together with their families, technical, and administrative officials, and servants “ in short, anyone in any way connected to them " are to enjoy legal immunity with respect to any crime they may commit in Iran. If some American's servant, some American cook, assassinates your marja in the middle of the bazaar, or runs over him, the Iranian police do not have the right to apprehend him! Iranian courts do not have the right to judge him! The dossier must be sent to America, so that our master there can decide what is to be done They have reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of the American dog. If someone runs over a dog belonging to an American, he will be persecuted. But if an American cook runs over the Shah, the head of the state, no one will have the right to interfere with him. Why? Because they wanted a loan and Americans demanded this in return.
Source: Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, p 181-188.
A visiting delegation of the powerful US House Armed Services Committee conveyed a veiled threat on Friday that Pakistan-US defense cooperation could be under cloud if the standoff persisted on the issue of immunity for Raymond Davis, an American national accused of killing two men in Lahore.
Shumaila, the widow of Muhammad Faheem, one of the two civilians shot dead in Lahore by a US citizen Raymond Davis committed suicide after taking poisonous pills on Sunday. The United States on Monday called the suicide of the wife of a Pakistani shot by a US official "a tragedy" but renewed calls on the country to free the American. The United States has put all bilateral contacts with Pakistan on hold until Islamabad releases an employee of the its consulate in Lahore, arrested for shooting down two men, diplomatic sources told Dawn.
The government on Saturday appeared to be all set to grant `immunity` to Raymond Davis, accused of double murder in Lahore, after Washington limited its bilateral interaction with Islamabad till the resolution of the matter. Apart from the pressure from Washington, what may have led the government to this decision was a message from Pakistan`s Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani. He urged the government to grant immunity to Davis at the earliest. His message was sent after the State Department virtually snapped all communication with the embassy in Washington. According to a top diplomatic source, a cable from the Washington embassy clearly warned that the diplomatic stand-off with the US was likely to grow more intense with each passing day. The cable is said to have also conveyed the strong sentiments in Washington on the issue and said that the US could go all out to get Davis released.
Below is a last paragraph of a column from Mr. Irfan Siddiqi on the subject of this blog:
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