News
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Davis freed* US national acquitted of double murder charges and released by court after a deal to pay ‘blood money’ to victims’ families was reached
Staff Report
LAHORE: An Additional Sessions Judge, Muhammad Yousaf Aujla, on Wednesday acquitted US citizen Raymond Davis involved in the killings of two Pakistanis after the victims’ families received the blood money to the tune of Rs 200 million.
The judge first indicted Davis for double murder and later acquitted him as he was pardoned by 19 legal heirs on the payment of diyat.
The judge sentenced Davis to an imprisonment of 41 days which he had already served as an under trial prisoner. Davis paid the fine and was released from the Kot Lakhpat Jail.
Davis had shot Faizan and Faheem on January 27 near Qartaba Chowk, Ferozepur Road, Lahore.
Lytton Road police had lodged a case against Davis on charges of killing two Pakistani citizens riding bikes.
Davis, in his defence, had taken the plea that he had killed the bike riders in ‘self-defence’ as they had tried to rob him.
The police on February 15, 2011, had submitted a 25-page charge sheet before the trial court declaring that Davis had murdered two young men and was not acting in self-defence.
It also said that guns recovered from the possession of the deceased were not loaded and they had also not pointed a gun at Davis.
The fingerprints found on the pistols’ triggers and on bodies of the deceased and tests showed that the bullets remained in the magazines of their guns, not the chambers.
The charge sheet also contained the statements of 47 witnesses, who had said that Davis did not shoot the men in self-defence.
According to these witnesses, the accused had shot directly at the two boys and kept shooting even when one of them tried to escape.
Asad Manzoor Butt, counsel of the victims’ families, after coming out of jail after acquittal of the accused claimed that legal heirs of the two victims said they were forced to sign diyat.
He claimed that Raymond Davis case was neither heard nor the counsels
were allowed to appear before the court.
He alleged that the jail administration stopped the hearing of the case and the legal heirs of the victims were taken out of the jail after four vehicles of US embassy left the jail.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk