- Failed attempt
It is unfortunate that the Americans tried to fly defence attaché Col Joseph Hall – who ran a red light and killed a 22-year old motorcyclist last month – out of the country so suddenly even as the court has given the government one week to decide if his name should be on the ECL. Also, the Foreign Office has written to the US State Department for official withdrawal of Hall’s diplomatic immunity. But, since actions speak louder than words, it seems Washington has had something quite different on its mind all this time. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for timely FIA action on the ground, as a C130 was flown in from Bagram to carry the attaché, he would have been well outside Pakistani airspace before even the press got wind of it.
This was a welcome departure from the Raymon Davis precedent from 2011, when the government allowed a CIA contract killer to walk away after a lot of blood money, even though the press did not cover in much detail that the widow of one of the men he killed committed suicide in protest. The Pakistani government should warn the Americans against any more attempts to smuggle out the defence attaché.
Such actions are also detrimental to the international image of the United States. As the home of representative democracy and standard bearer of rule of law, America itself should, and sometimes does, condemn actions that violate other countries’ laws, norms and customs. Instead of such ‘operations’, the State Department should take over the matter, and engage with the Pakistani Foreign Office to make the right kind of progress. This was not the only recent incident in which an American embassy official broke traffic laws and ran over a Pakistani national. But it should be the last, and those responsible should be dealt with according to the law.