CIA Backtracks in Pakistan

Washington Post

CIA security contractor who fatally shot two Pakistani men in January was released Wednesday after relatives of the victims received “blood money” as compensation and agreed to pardon him, U.S. officials said.

Raymond Davis was released from a Pakistani jail in Lahore after nearly two months in detention and was flown to meet with U.S. officials in Kabul. Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, accompanied Davis on the flight, a U.S. official said.
“There has been a plan in the works for the last three weeks,” the official said, adding that U.S. officials had desperately worked to free Davis before a threatened murder trial began. “The concern was that if the actual murder trial started it would become very difficult to extricate him.”
Davis was arrested Jan. 27 after gunning down two Pakistani men at a traffic signal in Lahore. Davis later said that the two men were attempting to rob him and had brandished a weapon.
The U.S. official confirmed that so-called “blood money” had been paid to family members of the shooting victims. In Pakistan, there is a tradition of such payments in return for pardoning the perpetrator of a crime.
An official close to the negotiations said three Pakistani families each received between $700,000 and $1 million as part of the deal to free Davis. In addition to the two men killed by Davis, a third Pakistani died after being struck by a vehicle carrying CIA personnel attempting to retrieve Davis after the shooting.
The sources for this story asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to discuss details of the case.
The decision to free Davis resolves what had become a high-stakes tense diplomatic stand-off and a signal of mounting tensions between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI.

Punjab province law minister Rana Sanauallah told a Pakistani news channel that Davis was set free by the court after the blood money was accepted by the families of those killed, in accordance with Islamic Sharia law.
He said, “The members of the families of killed persons appeared before the court and independently confirmed that they have forgiven Davis.”
When asked where Davis is now after his release, Sanaullah said, “He is a free American citizen and it is up to his own desire wherever he wants to go.”
He also denied any role of Punjab government in the settlement of the issue. “This is also baseless that the families of those killed were pressurized to sign the papers as for the acceptance of ‘blood money,’ ” he said.
A second U.S. official said that the U.S. government had yet to make any payments in connection with the case, apparently because the terms and initial payments were handled by Pakistani officials.
“To date the U.S. government has not paid anybody anything,” the U.S. official said. “We expect to receive a bill.” The U.S. official said that no other concessions had been made.
“There was no quid pro quo between the Pakistani and U.S. government” in connection the attempts to get Davis freed, the U.S. official said.
The unexpected release of Davis stunned Pakistanis, and opponents immediately accused the Zardari government of bowing to US pressure and selling the nation’s sovereignty by allowing him to be pardoned for blood money. Hundreds of angry protesters tried to gather outside the U.S. consulate in Lahore, where they were beaten back by police, and religious groups said they planned nationwide protests Friday.
“The judge who released Davis murdered law and justice,” said Sen. Khurshid Ahmad of Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest religious-based political party. He said federal, provincial and security officials had connived to free Davis, and that “blood money was taken not just for two men, but the whole country was sold.”
Pakistani officials denied Wednesday that they had capitulated to U.S. pressure, saying only that they had said accepted the court’s decision under the law.
Davis, 36, was a member of a security team assigned to protect CIA operatives in Lahore collecting intelligence on targets including Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Islamist group tied to terrorist attacks against India and long backed by the ISI.
Davis’s arrest triggered new tensions between the CIA and ISI, with officials from the Pakistani spy service expressing outrage that Davis’s activities had not been cleared with the Pakistani government.
Since almost immediately after his arrest, there was suspicion that Davis, a former U.S. special operations soldier, had worked for the CIA, fueled by the fact that Pakistani authorities found a camera, a headlamp, a small telescope and other spy paraphernalia in his possession.
The Washington Post for weeks refrained from reporting Davis’s status as a CIA employee at the request of the Obama administration, which said identifying him as an agency operative could risk his life.
The CIA has a major presence in Pakistan, despite an often dysfunctional relationship with the ISI. The agency has carried out more than 100 drone strikes over the past year in the tribal areas of Pakistan where al-Qaeda and other militant groups are based. The CIA and ISI have also collaborated on captures and other operations, even while frequently accusing one another of breaches of trust.
After his arrest, Davis became the center of a major diplomatic dispute. U.S. officials argued that he was protected by diplomatic immunity, but Pakistani authorities disputed that and threatened to try him for murder.
U.S. officials said serious negotiations to resolve the dispute began three weeks ago when Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass) made a surprise trip to Pakistan at the request of the administration to try to dampen tensions and encourage talks