Oh LuCIA…Pakistan would like to know why you sent an agent on a murderous rampage in the streets of Lahore:
The American who shot dead two men in Lahore, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and the US, is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time.
Raymond Davis has been the subject of widespread speculation since he opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock pistol on the two men who had pulled up in front of his car at a red light on 25 January.
Pakistani authorities charged him with murder, but the Obama administration has insisted he is an “administrative and technical official” attached to its Lahore consulate and has diplomatic immunity.
Based on interviews in the US and Pakistan, the Guardian can confirm that the 36-year-old former special forces soldier is employed by the CIA. “It’s beyond a shadow of a doubt,” said a senior Pakistani intelligence official. The revelation may complicate American efforts to free Davis, who insists he was acting in self-defence against a pair of suspected robbers, who were both carrying guns.
Pakistani prosecutors accuse the spy of excessive force, saying he fired 10 shots and got out of his car to shoot one man twice in the back as he fled. The man’s body was found 30 feet from his motorbike.
“It went way beyond what we define as self-defence. It was not commensurate with the threat,” a senior police official involved in the case told the Guardian.
The Pakistani government is aware of Davis’s CIA status yet has kept quiet in the face of immense American pressure to free him under the Vienna convention. Last week President Barack Obama described Davis as “our diplomat” and dispatched his chief diplomatic troubleshooter, Senator John Kerry, to Islamabad. Kerry returned home empty-handed.
Many Pakistanis are outraged at the idea of an armed American rampaging through their second-largest city. Analysts have warned of Egyptian-style protests if Davis is released. The government, fearful of a backlash, says it needs until 14 March to decide whether Davis enjoys immunity.
Given that his cover is now blown, I doubt whether immunity would help him very much. It’s kind of hard to claim diplomatic status when you’re actually Special Forces, and harder still when you’ve shot dead two men in cold blood on the streets of a major city. And hardest of all when the Pakistani ISI’s own agents say “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that you’re a spook.
And how do you like that euphemism: “administrative and technical official”. Uh, you mean HITMAN, don’t you? I doubt very much that this dude’s job was rubber-stamping passports and visas. I doubt that was even his diplomatic cover.
But kudos to the Yanks for trying. It’s not the first time they’ve had to attempt “diplomatic” cover for their asses, either. Remember this little incident in Bolivia?
Oh LuCIA, you crazy redhead you…
PS: It gets crazier. He’s not a diplomat at all, he’s a Blackwater merc. Since when do THEY have diplomatic immunity/cover? Unless the entire corporation is a CIA front, the answer is since NEVER.
