Islamabad, February 14: Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan has said Pakistan will demand the US release Dr Aafia Siddiqui, if Washington insists that Raymond Davis, who fatally shot two Pakistanis, be set free.
“We will demand the release of Aafia Siddiqui if America demands the release of Raymond Davis,” the minister told reporters in the eastern city of Gugranwala on Sunday, a Media correspondent reported.
“If the US demands the release of Raymond Davis, Pakistan has the right to demand the release of Aafia Siddiqui,” Awan reiterated.
Siddiqui has been sentenced to 86 years in prison in the US on charges of firing on FBI agents and US military personnel in a police station in Ghazni, where she was being interrogated in 2008.
Her lawyers argued that no evidence showing that Siddiqui had fired the weapon was ever presented in court.
Siddiqui vehemently denied all the charges against her during the trial, calling them ‘ridiculous’ and insisting that she was framed, jailed, and tortured by US agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The case of US national Raymond Davis, who killed two Pakistanis in late January, has raised tensions between the two uneasy allies.
He has admitted he shot the men, but says he acted in self-defense because they were trying to rob him. Pakistan’s police say they have proof that it was cold-blooded murder.
A Pakistani court has extended his detention by two weeks to clarify whether Davis has diplomatic status.
The US says the accused enjoys diplomatic immunity and should be released according to international law and custom.
Islamabad expressed the hope that its growing row with the United States over a jailed US functionary will not scuttle its crucial talks with Washington and Kabul on efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.
This is while the US State Department on Saturday said a meeting scheduled for this month in Washington among US, Afghan and Pakistani officials had been postponed, citing “political changes” in Pakistan.
——–Agencies