News and Analysis (2/22/11)

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American who sparked diplomatic crisis over Lahore shooting was CIA spy

• Raymond Davis employed by CIA ‘beyond shadow of doubt’
• Former soldier charged with murder over deaths of two men
• Davis accused of shooting one man twice in the back as he fled

• Special report: A CIA spy and a diplomatic whirlwind

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 February 2011 19.38 GMT
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  • Article history
  • In Karachi, scores of demonstrators call for the execution of Raymond Davis, the US consulate employee who has been jailed in Lahore for killing two Pakistanis Link to this video

    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


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