Diplomatic Immunity

Inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Pakistani college student Gulraiz Iqbal is itching for a reason to take his disdain for President Asif Ali Zardari's government to the streets. If Pakistani authorities grant diplomatic immunity and release Raymond Davis, the U.S. Embassy employee accused of murder in the deaths of two Pakistani men in Lahore, Iqbal will have the cause he craves. "We would organize students in Lahore and across the country, and create a movement that would turn into a revolution," said Iqbal, 22, a small, wiry man who is a leader of the Lahore student wing of an opposition party, Movement for Justice.

NEW DELHI - India ratcheted up its diplomatic standoff with Rome over a shooting incident last year, issuing orders at major airports and seaports Friday that the Italian ambassador was not allowed to leave the country without permission. The move could send relations into uncharted territory given international conventions against detaining diplomats. While it's not unusual for countries to expel diplomats during a disagreement, it's far less common to detain them. New Delhi also canceled the posting of its own ambassador to Italy, according to local media reports - possibly fearful Rome might do the same to its diplomat, by some accounts - and threatened to review all business and trade ties between the two countries.

Pakistani authorities Monday balked at ruling on whether CIA contractor Raymond Davis is immune from prosecution in a double murder case and instead put the matter in the hands of a Lahore trial court, a decision that will probably prolong the diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and Pakistan. The Lahore High Court had earlier ordered the federal government to clearly state on Monday its position on whether Davis, a 36-year-old American, has diplomatic immunity that would shield him from being tried for the Jan. 27 shooting deaths of two Pakistani motorcyclists who he says were trying to rob him in Lahore.

Imagine the heart of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson beating within the body of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and you'll have a sense of Danish documentarian Mads Brügger. In his 2009 film, "The Red Chapel," he invented a cross-cultural comedy troupe as subterfuge to enter North Korea and examine conditions there. In his latest, "The Ambassador," opening Friday in Los Angeles, Brügger travels to Liberia and the Central African Republic, where, posing as a businessman with a penchant for safari jackets and riding boots, he exposes widespread government corruption and complicity in diamond smuggling.

The State Department's chief of protocol defended diplomatic immunity today, despite testimony from victims who told tales of rapes and assaults gone unpunished, saying, "We are an honorable nation--we are not an Iran. We have set our signature on a treaty." Selwa Roosevelt testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on legislation that would limit immunity for foreign diplomats. She said the policy of diplomatic immunity protects U.S. diplomats and their families at missions abroad.

In the wake of terrorist incidents linked to foreign diplomats, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger called Thursday for an examination of diplomatic immunity and told a lawyers' conference that "diplomatic title must not confer a license to murder." The secretary, whose views on countering terrorism have conflicted at times with those of Secretary of State George P. Shultz and others in the Reagan Administration, said the United States must steer clear of extreme solutions.

The laws of diplomacy leave the U.S. government and local law enforcement agencies all but powerless when it comes to taking legal action against representatives of foreign governments who violate American law. Because of that, Gueorgui Makharadze, the economics minister attached to the Republic of Georgia's embassy in Washington, seems certain to escape prosecution for the car crash death of a 16-year-old girl in the capital last week.

A federal judge ruled Monday that Canadian Ambassador Allan Gotlieb cannot be compelled to testify at the perjury trial of former White House aide Michael K. Deaver. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson denied independent counsel Whitney North Seymour's motion to compel Gotlieb to appear in court and quashed the subpoena.

The court-appointed prosecutor of former White House aide Michael K. Deaver provoked the ire of Canadian diplomats Wednesday by insisting that Canada's ambassador to Washington testify as "a key prosecution witness" in Deaver's upcoming perjury trial. Refusing to accept a subpoena naming Ambassador Allan E. Gotlieb, Canadian Embassy officials filed a formal protest with the State Department claiming that the action by prosecutor Whitney North Seymour Jr.

Archbishop William Levada agreed Wednesday to waive diplomatic immunity and answer questions about sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests after he takes over as the church's guardian on doctrine -- the Vatican post formerly held by Pope Benedict XVI. Levada, 69, who officially steps down as archbishop of San Francisco next week, is heading to Rome to take over as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The suit by a hotel maid who alleged she was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the once-prominent French politician, can go forward, a New York judge ruled Tuesday. In a 12-page decision, State Supreme Court Judge Douglas McKeon rejected Strauss-Kahn's contention that he could not be sued in the civil case because he had diplomatic immunity in May 2011 when the encounter with the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, is alleged to have taken place. At the time, Strauss-Kahn was head of the International Monetary Fund.

Pakistani authorities Monday balked at ruling on whether CIA contractor Raymond Davis is immune from prosecution in a double murder case and instead put the matter in the hands of a Lahore trial court, a decision that will probably prolong the diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and Pakistan. The Lahore High Court had earlier ordered the federal government to clearly state on Monday its position on whether Davis, a 36-year-old American, has diplomatic immunity that would shield him from being tried for the Jan. 27 shooting deaths of two Pakistani motorcyclists who he says were trying to rob him in Lahore.

Surely a screenplay is already in the works. An American diplomat guns down two men in broad daylight in Lahore, Pakistan. The diplomat, who secretly works for the CIA, is apprehended and turned over to the local police. In his car, according to news reports, is a Glock 9-millimeter handgun, 75 rounds of ammunition, a global positioning system device, a survival kit and a satellite phone. As U.S. officials from the president on down press for his release, he is held in a Pakistani jail, his food sniffed by dogs for fear he will be poisoned.

The U.S. citizen who shot to death two motorcyclists in the eastern city of Lahore last month works with the CIA, Pakistani and U.S. officials said Monday ? a revelation that could further aggravate anti-American sentiment in the nuclear-armed nation and complicate Washington's efforts to secure his release. Pakistani authorities said they learned of Raymond Davis' links to the CIA after his arrest on charges that he murdered two Pakistani men he said were trying to rob him at gunpoint, according to a senior Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

Inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Pakistani college student Gulraiz Iqbal is itching for a reason to take his disdain for President Asif Ali Zardari's government to the streets. If Pakistani authorities grant diplomatic immunity and release Raymond Davis, the U.S. Embassy employee accused of murder in the deaths of two Pakistani men in Lahore, Iqbal will have the cause he craves. "We would organize students in Lahore and across the country, and create a movement that would turn into a revolution," said Iqbal, 22, a small, wiry man who is a leader of the Lahore student wing of an opposition party, Movement for Justice.

The fatal shooting of two Pakistani men by a U.S. Embassy official last month was "cold-blooded murder" and not self-defense, police investigators in Pakistan's second largest city said Friday, escalating a diplomatic crisis that threatens to rupture relations between the U.S. and a vital ally in the war on terror. With Pakistani law enforcement authorities set on a course to try Raymond Davis on murder charges, the 36-year-old American's best hope now lies with his claim of diplomatic immunity -- an assertion that so far the federal government has avoided affirming.

The government of Mexico has quietly agreed to allow U.S. drug agents to carry guns while operating in that country and to extend diplomatic immunity to them, Administration officials told The Times on Thursday. The broadened authority, part of new rules governing the activities of U.S.

A Pakistani judge Tuesday barred authorities from releasing an American Consulate official accused of double murder despite the U.S. government's insistence that diplomatic immunity shields him from prosecution. Five days after Raymond Davis shot to death two Pakistani men in the eastern city of Lahore in what he said was self-defense, authorities here showed no signs of bowing to demands from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad that the 36-year-old be freed because he is a diplomat and therefore cannot be tried on criminal charges.

A Pakistani judge Tuesday barred authorities from releasing an American Consulate official accused of double murder despite the U.S. government's insistence that diplomatic immunity shields him from prosecution. Five days after Raymond Davis shot to death two Pakistani men in the eastern city of Lahore in what he said was self-defense, authorities here showed no signs of bowing to demands from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad that the 36-year-old be freed because he is a diplomat and therefore cannot be tried on criminal charges.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad on Saturday demanded that Pakistani authorities release an American diplomat who faces murder charges in the recent deaths of two men in the eastern city of Lahore, arguing that he is protected by diplomatic immunity and was acting in self-defense against the armed men. The man, who Pakistani authorities said was a technical advisor working in the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, is at the center of an escalating row between...