LAHORE – An expert who previously worked in a key US State Department diplomatic affairs position was questioning the Obama administration’s claim that Raymond Davis, the American currently imprisoned in Pakistan after killing two men, had diplomatic immunity, news website Salon.com reported.
The website said that Ron Mlotek, who was a specialist in diplomatic law, had served for 25 years as legal counsel at the State Department Office of Foreign Missions, which regulates foreign missions in the US. In an interview with Salon.com, Mlotek said there remained crucial unanswered questions in the case, and that the question of Davis’ immunity was not nearly as clear-cut as the administration had argued.
“On the basis of what has been publicly reported, it appears to me that the State Department is relying on legal smoke and mirrors,” the site quoted Mlotek as saying. In his former position, Mlotek had dealt with many cases of alleged crimes by foreign representatives in the US, the site reported.
The Obama administration had argued that Davis’ detainment was not permitted because he had full diplomatic immunity – a position which, if he did actually enjoy such immunity, would be correct, the site reported Mlotek as saying. The site reported that there were two relevant international treaties to consider when deciding whether Davis had immunity: the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961).
When a diplomatic officer or a consular officer was dispatched to a foreign country, Mlotek said, the US informed the so-called “receiving state” that the officer was arriving and describes his or her job at the embassy or consulate, the site reported. The mode of official communication was called a “diplomatic note.”
After getting the notification, the receiving state – in this case Pakistan – typically recognized the person as a diplomatic officer or a consular officer and issued some kind of diplomatic ID card or notice of recognition, the site stated. Diplomatic officers received full immunity, while consular officers got only limited “official acts immunity”, the site reported.
This difference was crucial in Davis’ case because the administration had changed its story about Davis’ status, it said. In late January, the site added, the administration described Davis as “a staff member of the US Consulate General in Lahore”, but later on, they insisted that Pakistan had been officially informed in early 2010 that Davis was “a member of the administrative and technical staff” at the embassy.
Consular officers therefore had a lesser class of immunity that covered only actions that were part of their official duties, the site said. “Davis’ official duties almost certainly would not have involved using an unregistered pistol against Pakistani civilians,” it quoted Mlotek as saying.
Assuming what the administration was now claiming was true, there was a second set of potential flaws in the claim of full immunity according to Mlotek, the site said. If the US had informed Pakistan in 2010 that Davis was working at the Islamabad embassy, why was he actually working in Lahore? Mlotek summarises the potential problem:
“Suppose we not only lie about the fact that he’s a spy, but we lie about the fact that he has anything to do with the embassy in Islamabad. And then, to top it all off, not only is he not in Islamabad, he’s in Lahore. He’s not even working in the premises of the consulate. He’s working in a secret facility that we have not announced.
The Vienna Convention specifically obligates the US to tell Pakistan about where their premises are. And not only that, he’s carrying a weapon – we didn’t tell the Pakistanis that. At what point do you say the diplomatic note was not valid?” the website quoted the former specialist as saying.
