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Cross-Post: How a Single Spy Helped Turn Pakistan Against the United States

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April 14, 2013

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Only a small group of Obama administration officials knew of the talks, and as they dragged on, Lahore’s high court was preparing to rule on whether Davis would be granted diplomatic immunity, a decision the C.I.A. expected to go against the United States and worried might set a precedent for future cases in Pakistan.

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Davis remained in the dark about all of this. When he arrived for his court appearance on March 16, he was fully expecting to hear that the trial would proceed and that the judge would issue a new court date. He was escorted into the courtroom, his wrists cuffed in front of him, and locked inside an iron cage near the judge’s bench. According to one person’s account, General Pasha sat in the back of the courtroom, his cellphone out. He began sending out a stream of nervous text messages to Ambassador Munter, updating him about the court proceedings. Pasha was one of the most powerful men in Pakistan, and yet the I.S.I. had little control over the mercurial courts in Lahore, and he wasn’t entirely sure that things would proceed according to plan.

The first part of the hearing went as everyone expected. The judge, saying that the case would go ahead, noted that his ruling on diplomatic immunity would come in a matter of days. Pakistani reporters frantically began filing their stories about how this seemed a blow to the American case, and that it appeared that Davis would not be released from jail anytime soon. But then the judge ordered the courtroom cleared, and General Pasha’s secret plan unfolded.

Through a side entrance, 18 relatives of the victims walked into the room, and the judge announced that the civil court had switched to a Shariah court. Each of the family members approached Davis, some of them with tears in their eyes or sobbing outright, and announced that he or she forgave him. Pasha sent another text message to Munter: The matter was settled. Davis was a free man. In a Lahore courtroom, the laws of God had trumped the laws of man.

The drama played out entirely in Urdu, and throughout the proceeding, a baffled Davis sat silently inside the cage. He was even more stunned when I.S.I. operatives whisked him out of the courthouse through a back entrance and pushed him into a waiting car that sped to the Lahore airport.

The move had been choreographed to get Davis out of the country as quickly as possible. American officials, including Munter, were waiting for Davis at the airport, and some began to worry. Davis had, after all, already shot dead two men he believed were threatening him. If he thought he was being taken away to be killed, he might try to make an escape, even try to kill the I.S.I. operatives inside the car. When the car arrived at the airport and pulled up to the plane ready to take Davis out of Pakistan, the C.I.A. operative was in a daze. It appeared to the Americans waiting for him that Davis realized only then that he was safe.

The Davis affair led Langley to order dozens of covert officers out of Pakistan in the hope of lowering the temperature in the C.I.A. – I.S.I. relationship. Ambassador Munter issued a public statement shortly after the bizarre court proceeding, saying he was “grateful for the generosity” of the families and expressing regret for the entire incident and the “suffering it caused.”

But the secret deal only fueled the anger in Pakistan, and anti-American protests flared in major cities, including Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. Demonstrators set tires ablaze, clashed with Pakistani riot police and brandished placards with slogans like “I Am Raymond Davis, Give Me a Break, I Am Just a C.I.A. Hit Man.”

The entire episode — and bin Laden’s killing in Abbottabad later that spring — extinguished any lingering productive relations between the United States and Pakistan. Leon Panetta’s relationship with General Pasha, the I.S.I. chief, was poisoned, and the already small number of Obama officials pushing for better relations between Washington and Islamabad dwindled even further. Munter was reporting daily back to Washington about the negative impact of the armed-drone campaign and about how the C.I.A. seemed to be conducting a war in a vacuum, oblivious to the ramifications that the drone strikes were having on American relations with Pakistan’s government.

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Related Topics:america anti-american CIA Lashkar-e-Taiba pakistan Raymond Davis

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11 Comments

Hassan

April 15, 2013 at 12:38 PM

Hmm, if I remember correctly, the two killed by Davis were ISI people trying to see what Davis is upto. The article did not mention that

Reply
- Gibran
  
  April 15, 2013 at 9:04 PM
  
  Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
  
  How do you know such a thing?
  
  Reply
  - Hassan
    
    April 16, 2013 at 1:42 PM
    
    That is what I heard, I can go and check pakistani newspaper. But what I heard was that ISI agents were seeing what Davis is upto and he realized it and then killed them
    
    Reply
    - Gibran
      
      April 16, 2013 at 4:30 PM
      
      Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
      
      It my be a conspiracy theory.
      
      Reply
      - Hassan
        
        April 16, 2013 at 11:43 PM
        
        See me response below
- Mansoor Ansari
  
  April 16, 2013 at 12:09 AM
  
  No they were not, they were small time crooks.
  
  Reply
Hassan

April 16, 2013 at 11:43 PM

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2047149,00.html

“Equally misleading, say Pakistani officials, is the claim in Pakistani media that Davis’ victims had been “ordinary men”, or even as “robbers,” as the State Department has suggested. “They were from the ISI,” says a government official, referring to Pakistan’s military intelligence agency. It isn’t clear, the official says, whether they were full paid-up agents or local informants.”

and

“The loss of two men linked with the ISI has injured the Pakistani military’s pride, officials say, and comes amid rising tensions with Washington”

This is definitely the standard position of Pakistani government. So I am surprised this was not mentioned. (even if it was wrong claim)

Reply
- Gibran
  
  April 16, 2013 at 11:47 PM
  
  Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
  
  What reason would they have to say those two men are ISI agents? In all likelihood they weren’t. Allahu a’lam, the first cases to be judged on yawm al Qiyamah are cases of bloodshed.
  
  Reply
- Aly Balagamwala | DiscoMaulvi
  
  April 17, 2013 at 12:12 AM
  
  They were low-level informants. If they had really been higher-level ISI agents there would have been no way Davis could have walked out. And the relations would have soured much more.
  
  Reply
Hyde

April 29, 2013 at 10:42 PM

What was the purpose of this article to appear on MM ? If it was to garner some sort of sympathy for the state of Pakistan, I certainly don’t think it achieved its purpose. The real problem with Pakistan was 1947 and besides turning civil courts into shariah courts shows the contempt they have for authentic Islamic practices. Islam to be used as a crutch; you can use when it best serves and dispose of it when you don’t need it. I wonder if it was the generalissimo’s family that was involved, would he be so quick to get “blood money” ? (Does the Fauj give blood money to the people it takes “care off” in Baluchistan ?) The elite all over the muslim world are the same.

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Angry Muslimah

September 12, 2013 at 11:29 AM

what about the guy who was run over? what happend to the driver? nothing right. thats normal, look at fallujah and haditha and all the countless times they have killed muslims on purpose they dont bother to reprimand their army. bradley manning told of how civilians were being killed regularly, but his co said no problem!

Reply