CIA Contractor Raymond Davis Freed After 'Blood Money' Payment

By Greg Miller and Shaiq Hussain, The Washington Post

16 March 11

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, US officials said.

Raymond Davis was released from a Pakistani jail in Lahore after nearly two months in detention and was flown to meet with US officials in Kabul. Cameron Munter, the US ambassador to Pakistan, accompanied Davis on the flight, a US official said.

"There has been a plan in the works for the last three weeks," the official said, adding that US 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 US 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 US official said that the US 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 US government has not paid anybody anything," the US official said. "We expect to receive a bill." The US official said that no other concessions had been made.

"There was no quid pro quo between the Pakistani and US government" in connection the attempts to get Davis freed, the US 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 US 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 US 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 US 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. US officials argued that he was protected by diplomatic immunity, but Pakistani authorities disputed that and threatened to try him for murder.

US 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.

CIA and ISI officials also met in attempts to smooth out disagreements over issues including ISI claims that the CIA was mounting secret operations inside Pakistan without informing their hosts.

A broad agreement was reached last Friday to make blood money payments to the families in return for Davis's release, but officials said there was concern it might unravel as the families argued about the final terms.

The agreement was struck under "compensation and forgiveness" provisions of Sharia law that are incorporated in Pakistan's civil statutes. The official familiar with the negotiations acknowledged that the families were under significant pressure by some political and religious figures not to settle, which may account for the delay in reaching a deal.

While angered over the Davis case, some Pakistani authorities were also eager to defuse a situation that called attention to the ongoing CIA presence in the country, and threatened a major rupture with a US government that provides billions of dollars in aid.

A senior US official said Davis was flown to Kabul because the United States wanted him out of Pakistan as soon as possible and "it was the closest place."

The official said Davis was in "good spirits," but was not immediately asked to speak in detail about the shootings or his time in custody. "We wanted to leave that to the professionals," the official said.

The release, the official said, came after "long, long talks with their government."

"This was the kind of thing that forced us to take a hard look at our relationship," the official said. "I think both sides realize that we really need to work with each other."

It was not immediately clear how soon Davis will be flown to the United States, the official said.

Munter, the US ambassador to Pakistan, issued a statement Wednesday confirming that Davis had been pardoned, and thanking the Pakistani families for "their generosity."

"I wish to express, once again, my regret for the incident and my sorrow at the suffering it caused," Munter said in the statement, which was dated March 10 – a possible indication of how long a tentative deal had been in place.

Staff writers Pam Constable in Lahore, Karen DeYoung in Washington and Ernesto Londono in Kabul also contributed to this story. Hussein, a special correspondent, reported from Islamabad.