Washington Post:
The murky case of an American diplomat who fatally shot two Pakistanis this week escalated into a diplomatic standoff Saturday, as the U.S. Embassy demanded the man's immediate release and accused Pakistan of illegally detaining him.
In a statement and interviews, U.S. officials in this capital city said the man, Raymond A. Davis, was a diplomat who fired in self-defense and qualified for immunity from prosecution. Law enforcement authorities in Punjab province, where the shooting took place Thursday, had made no effort to verify his diplomatic status before arresting and detaining him, in violation of international conventions, officials said.
"You don't treat a diplomat like another person. You don't arraign them before a court. That's serious, too, and this will escalate," a senior U.S. official said Saturday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The official added that Pakistani authorities had not allowed American officials access to Davis until midnight Friday: "That's a pretty big breach of protocol."
Shortly after the United States issued its demand, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry released a statement referring to Davis as a "U.S. functionary." A senior Pakistani government official said Davis's diplomatic status was "not clear at all."
The dueling statements signaled a deepening dispute between the United States and Pakistan - tenuous allies whose partnership is acutely unpopular among the Pakistani public - over an incident that has quickly become enmeshed in broader tensions in the relationship.
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The media in Pakistan and the US has been silent on the background of the two men killed when they allegedly attacked the diplomat in his car. While his car was riddled with bullet, the Pakistan authorities make no mention of whether a gun was recovered from the two dead perps. Right now they seem to be buckling down into a passive aggressive response to the US demands.
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