Davis has diplomatic immunity: Obama

Supporters of Pakistani religious party Jamat-e-Islami chant slogans during a rally against Raymond Davis in Lahore on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/165425.html

US President Barack Obama has urged Pakistan to free a US consulate employee who has been detained over the killing of two Pakistani citizens in Lahore.

During a press conference in Washington on Tuesday, Obama said that the US official, identified as Raymond Davis, enjoys diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention, a Press TV correspondent reported.

"If our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution," Obama stated. He called on Islamabad to abide by the convention and set Davis free.

Meanwhile, US Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, who arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday for talks about Davis's case, has apologized over the killings.

"US respect Pakistani courts, but Raymond's issue has nothing to do with courts as diplomats enjoy immunity under Vienna convention," Kerry told reporters in eastern Lahore city.

The United States has already stepped up pressure on Pakistan over Davis and has threatened to cut billions of dollars in military and other assistance if Islamabad does not free him.

The warning has placed the government in a dilemma, with crowds of Pakistanis expressing indignation in rallies in Lahore and demanding that Davis be brought to justice.

Davis has said he acted in self-defense in an attempted robbery, but Pakistani officials say US diplomats are not allowed to carry weapons in the country.

Fauzia Wahab, a senior member of the Pakistan People's Party, told Press TV on Monday that the US official had diplomatic immunity and should not have been arrested.

Pakistani Federal Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan has said the US should free Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who is a Pakistani citizen, in return for the US national's release.

In 2010, Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison in the US on charges of opening fire with a rifle on FBI agents and US military personnel in a police station in Ghazni, Afghanistan, where she was being interrogated, in 2008.