23 Dec, 2013
Indian diplomat row: US actions reflect a questionable motive – Hindustan Times
When Douglas Kent, the US Consul General in Vladivostok, in an accident while driving his personal car from a gym crippled a Russian, the victim was unable to get compensation. The US Embassy in Moscow claimed full immunity and the injured was denied compensation on the ground that the US official was acting within the scope of his employment. The Embassy even prevented Kent from being subjected to a blood alcohol test as the State Department “prohibits Foreign Service officers from being injected with a needle by a foreign official.”
In another instance, when an allegedly drunk US Marine attached to the US Embassy in Bucharest drove on the wrong side and killed a well-known Romanian pop star, he was spirited out of the country.
But the most interesting case is that of Raymond Davis, a CIA operative, who had shot and killed two Pakistanis. The US claimed full diplomatic immunity for him though the State Department had even said that the person involved in the killing was not Raymond Davis and later went to say that he was a “staff member for the United States Consulate in Lahore.” John Kerry flew to Pakistan for the release of Davis and President Barack Obama too lent his weight to it. The US went to the extent of cancelling trips as well as threatening to freeze monetary assistance to Pakistan if he was not freed.
Read the rest: Indian diplomat row: The actions of US reflect a questionable motive – Hindustan Times.
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