Parallax View: Who is Ray Davis and why did he kill two Pakistanis?

Everyone loves a good spy story. But I think I love them more than most people!

The trouble with spy stories is that even when they are written by former spies – John Le Carre for example – or based on real events (Le Carre’s Tinker

Tailor Soldier Spy was inspired by the Philby affair) they tend to be dismissed as being too incredible to believe. Real Life, we keep being told, is not like that.

 

   So, whenever I come across a news story involving spies operating in the real world, I check to see how much the real-life incident corresponds to fictional accounts of the spy world. And guess what, I’ve found many actual news events that seem straight out of fiction. The whole Headley saga (was he a double agent?) is out of a spy movie. Last year’s assassination of a Palestinian terrorist by a Mossad hit squad in Dubai was exactly as the novelists portray Mossad operations.

 

   And now there is Ray Davis.

 

   In case you’ve been vacationing on another planet for the last fortnight, let me briefly repeat the facts of the case. On January 27, an American man killed two Pakistanis in a busy lower middle-class section of Lahore. After he had killed them, he photographed their bodies. The local police (who report, as in India, to the state government and not the Centre) took the man into custody. He said he was Raymond Davis and worked with the US consulate. (He did not claim to be a diplomat, at least not immediately judging by cell-phone videos of the arrest).

 

   Later, the US embassy said that he worked as a technical consultant with its Karachi consulate, claimed diplomatic immunity on his behalf and demanded his release.

 

   The laws governing diplomatic community are complex – as we discovered in the case of the Indian diplomat accused of domestic violence in the UK. But while well-meaning Indian commentators said things like “in cases involving violence, there is no question of diplomatic immunity, etc.”, the US has always taken an aggressive position. Even if one of its diplomats rapes and kills a seven-year-old, his diplomatic immunity is an absolute right and he cannot be tried by the country where the crime was committed.

 

   The Pakistanis were reluctant to grant Davis diplomatic immunity because a) the state government in Punjab had already turned the murders into a huge issue, b) it was not clear that Davis did have diplomatic immunity – the Foreign Minister who said that he was not on the list of accredited diplomats was quickly dropped from the cabinet and c) public opinion and Pakistani pride were inflamed especially after the 18-year-old widow of one of the men Davis killed committed suicide saying, on her death bed “Khoon ke badle khoon!” (which movie could top that?).

 

   You would think that, in such cases, the Americans would let the matter drop till tempers had cooled. Instead, America has launched an all-out offensive to get Davis back in the US. President Obama has intervened personally, Senator John Kerry has been sent to Islamabad to intercede with the Pakistanis and all kinds of threats (stopping aid, etc.) have been levelled at Pakistan.

 

   So why do the Americans care so much? Who is Ray Davis and why did he kill two Pakistanis?

 

   No clear answers have emerged. One US version had it that the two men attacked Davis and he fired in self-defence. Another version concedes there was no attack but says that they were armed. A third version has it that they were robbers who had already robbed somebody before approaching Davis.

 

   As for who he is, that is not clear either. The US says he is a member of the consulate’s staff. But what did he do there? Was he CIA, as the Pakistanis say? Oh no, say US sources. Off-the-record, they claim that he was a defence contractor hired by the US government.

 

   At one level, this makes some sense. But the deeper you dig, it all falls apart. First of all, the claims about Davis’s identity are sought to be buttressed by claims that he worked for a company called Hyperion. When the Pakistani police searched Davis’s house, they found cards identifying him as an employee of Hyperion.

 

"What was this operation? And how many other agents like Davis does the US have in South Asia?"

   But they also found a card identifying him as a member of the staff of the US consulate in Peshawar (the US had denied he was posted in Peshawar). And investigations by the US media reveal that Hyperion is a bogus company with nothing more than a postal address.

 

   It is true that the so-called war-on-terror has been largely outsourced to private contractors (like Blackwater) but rarely has the US got so exercised about the arrest of a private contractor. (Arrest is one of the risks they are paid for.) So is the Hyperion identity no more than a cover for a US government employee (i.e. a spy)?

 

   This may well be the case.

 

   Then, there are the circumstances of the murder. I don’t necessarily trust the Lahore police or believe everything they say. But they have produced photos of the windshield of Davis’s car. It turns out that he fired at the two men from inside his car. The tight pattern of bullet holes (he fired through the windscreen) suggests that a professional was at work. This guy knew how to pump eight shots through his windscreen at his targets.

 

   But how did he kill the targets? The Pakistanis claim (and presumably they have post-mortem reports to prove this) that both victims were shot in the back and one took a bullet in the back of his head. These were not shots fired in self-defence. These shots were fired by a professional who was aiming to kill.

 

   Who were the victims? According to Pakistani sources (speaking to the Pakistani media) the two men were ISI agents detailed with tailing Davis. They were not robbers or assassins but plodding spooks who were doing their jobs.

 

   Why then would Davis kill them?

 

   That is where the Pakistanis have no convincing answer. And so, the Americans can claim that their man would only have pulled the trigger if he felt he was being threatened.

 

   There is, however, another explanation. The Punjab police say (and there is no independent verification for this) that among the items found in Davis’s car were large numbers of cell phones, explosive projectile bullets, wire-cutters, military-grade knives and a cell phone tracker. When they searched his house they found masks, disguises and make-up. They also found a camera loaded with photos of military installations.

 

   The Pakistanis suggest that Davis was running a ring of local agents whom he had just met. The ISI men following him noted the identities of these agents. Could Davis have killed the ISI guys to protect the identities of his agents for fear that the operation he was planning would be blown?

 

   If so, then this was a major operation which was worth committing murder for. And important enough for the US to lean so heavily on Pakistan to get Davis back.

 

   What was this operation? And how many other agents like Davis does the US have in South Asia?

 

   Good questions. But I don’t think we’ll get any answers.

 

   All we know is this: truth can sometimes be more surreal than fiction.