Pak produce US gunman in court
was self-defence appeared in court Friday, with prosecutors set to demand a murder trial.
"He has been produced in the court," senior police official Suhail Sukhera told as a heavy police deployment guarded the court premises. US embassy officials were also present for the procedural hearing.
The case has inflamed the fractious relationship between Islamabad and Washington, which are allies in the war against Islamist insurgents in Afghanistan.
On January 27, Raymond Davis, a staffer at the US consulate-general in Lahore, shot dead two Pakistani men who he said were trying to rob him in broad daylight on the streets of the city.
A third Pakistani was run over and killed by a US consular vehicle coming to aid Davis, who was instead taken into Pakistani police custody.
Washington has demanded the American's immediate release, saying he acted in self-defence and has diplomatic immunity, and US lawmakers have threatened to cut aid to Pakistan unless he is freed.
But in what has become a political time-bomb, the government in Islamabad is under enormous domestic pressure to see Davis go on trial and local lawyers argue that diplomatic immunity can be waived for grave crimes.
The deaths sparked protests in Pakistan, where the alliance with Washington is hugely unpopular and anti-American sentiment runs high, fuelled by US missile attacks on Islamists in the northwest.
The wife of Mohammed Faheem, one of the two men shot dead by Davis, committed suicide on Sunday by taking poison. Doctors said that before she died, Shumaila Faheem told them she feared Davis would be released without trial.
"We want blood for blood," she had told Pakistani television.
Davis - whose identity and consulate position have not been officially confirmed by the US government - has been held on an eight-day police remand.
The remand period expires Friday, and a judge was expected to decide whether he should be transferred to judicial custody in prison, a precursor to a trial.
Rana Sanaullah, Punjab's law minister, said the prosecution would seek his trial for homicide.
"We will prepare murder charges against him," Sanaullah said. "Another case of carrying unlicensed weapons will also be taken up against him."
In Pakistan, few are convinced that Davis was a normal diplomat. Police told they recovered a Glock pistol, four loaded magazines, a GPS navigation system and a small telescope from his car.
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