Raymond A. Davis, a C.I.A killer was arrested for killing two Pakistani young men on a crowded Lahore street. He was released after weeks of secret negotiations between American and Pakistani officials. A pledge of millions of dollars in “blood money” to the victims’ families, and quiet political pressure by Zardari’s political establishment on the courts removed all the hurdles.
Islamic law of Diyat was manipulated to get the imprisoned C.I.A. officer free. The case was secretly resolved after Pakistani officials met for more than six hours with the family members of the victims. A secret trial was arranged in the prison to arrange for the “blood money” under the pretext that such agreements are an accepted part of the Islamic law and the criminal laws in Pakistan.
The lawyers for the families and Pakistani officials said the total compensation was about $2.3 million.
Raymond A. Davis was flown out of the country to Kabul before the news of his release could ignite a furor.
The release of Mr. Davis might cool the frictions between the US and Pakistan temporarily, but it has left unresolved many of the irritants that strained ties in the first place.
The Davis episode was particularly sensitive because of the resentment among Pakistani masses. It is generally believe that a large number of CIA operatives are roaming in the country, and are involved in flagrant target-killings with relative impunity. Many Pakistanis were also furious that for weeks after the shooting American officials appeared to show little public sympathy for the victims.
American officials insist that the “US government did not pay the blood-money”, the C.I.A. made no pledges to scale back covert operations in Pakistan or to give the Pakistani government or its intelligence agency a roster of American spies operating in the country.
The settlement, coming as Mr. Davis was facing indictment on murder charges in a lower court, shed no new light on the circumstances of the January 27 killings. The United States ambassador in Islamabad on March 16 announced that the Justice Department would investigate the shooting, which Mr. Davis said occurred after two motorcyclists tried to rob him while he was driving alone.
Pakistani and American officials said that they were particularly eager to resolve the case before the Lahore High Court could rule on whether Mr. Davis should be granted diplomatic immunity – a protection that American officials insisted he was entitled to. A ruling against Mr. Davis, American officials said, could have set a precedent for other countries to deny C.I.A. operatives diplomatic protections.
Although details remain murky, the officials suggested that Pakistan’s government leaned on influential politicians in Lahore – including the family of Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the main opposition party – to press the high court to delay ruling on the Davis case. Settling the case with a compensation agreement and without a high court decision also allowed Pakistan’s weak civilian government to save face.
American officials impressed upon both Pakistani civilian officials and Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s military chief that Congress could decide to hold up more than $3 billion in annual aid to Pakistan if Mr. Davis were not freed.
In remarks to reporters in Cairo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton thanked Pakistani officials and the families of the two men for agreeing to release Mr. Davis. “We appreciate the actions they took that enabled Mr. Davis to leave Pakistan and head back home,” she said.
Ms. Clinton said that the United States “did not pay any compensation,” but deflected questions about whether the families had been paid at America’s request. American officials said that it was members of Pakistan’s government who pledged to pay the blood money to the families, and that the American government would reimburse the Pakistani government.
The payment of “blood money” was suggested by Saudi authorities and was first raised with Pakistani officials by Senator John Kerry during a trip to Islamabad last month. Since then, American and Pakistani officials have regularly discussed the matter, and the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, has spoken frequently to the ISI chief, Lt. Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha.
The Davis affair was particularly thorny for the relationship between the two spy services, since Mr. Davis’s covert group in Lahore had been assigned to gather intelligence about the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
American officials said that Mr. Panetta had made no concrete pledges to curtail agency operations in exchange for Mr. Davis’s release. “There was absolutely no quid pro quo between the United States and the Pakistani government,” the official said.
The Pakistani government began negotiating directly with the victims’ families within the last week, as the court proceedings against Mr. Davis loomed. A lawyer attached to the Supreme Court in Islamabad, Raja Irshad Kayani, said he was contacted by the families just two days ago to negotiate the agreement for them and represent them in court.
The lawyer previously representing the families, Asad Manzoor Butt, said that his clients had become impossible to reach by phone. When he arrived with a colleague to attend Wednesday’s court hearing he was held in a room for four hours and not permitted to enter the courtroom or meet with the families.
Meanwhile, Mr. Irshad arrived from Islamabad just in time, as the lower court judge was beginning the proceedings to indict Mr. Davis. The lawyer presented the judge with a signed agreement under which both families accepted cash payments and agreed to drop the murder charges.
It remains unclear whether the families were coerced into accepting the deal. Lawyers who attended court proceedings said that the American consul general for Lahore was present in court.
Pakistani government clearly maneuvered to separate the families of the victims from their lawyer Mr. Butt and the religious parties that have been demonstrating against the release of the C.I.A operative. Mr. Butt said he had offered his services to the families for free at the request of Jamaat-e-Islami.
Anti-American masses have been demanding a death sentence for Mr. Davis, and are expected to continue to press the Pakistani government to seek justice in the killing of a third man, who was knocked from his motorcycle by a United States Consulate car that was rushing to the rescue of Mr. Davis at the time of the killings.