ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has every right to hold for “a reasonable period of time” a US diplomat who was involved in a fatal traffic collision until the facts can be ascertained by investigators and a court verdict is passed, said former Pakistani Ambassador Javed Hafiz.
On Saturday, a US aircraft landed at an air base in the city of Rawalpindi in an attempt to take Defense and Air Attache Col. Joseph Emanuel Hall out of Pakistan.
Hafiz told Arab News: “Pakistan isn’t breaking international law because Hall has been stopped only for the investigation to be completed. He hasn’t been arrested or brought before a local court. He enjoys full immunity from Pakistani law and detention.”
Shakeel Ahmed Durrani, director of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), told Arab News that Hall “is on a block list,” so “there’s no question about him leaving.” Durrani said Hall never showed up at the air base, contrary to reports that he was present.
“A US Embassy official came to the air base with the colonel’s travel documents. Once we ran the documents through our system and confirmed his name was on the provisional list, we informed the official that Hall wasn’t allowed to leave the country,” Durrani added.
The US Embassy declined to comment to Arab News, but Pakistan’s refusal to allow Hall to travel is likely to further strain ties between the two estranged allies.
Hall violated two traffic lights in Islamabad on April 7, and his vehicle hit two motorcyclists. Ateeq Baig was killed and Raheel Ahmed was seriously injured, according to police officials who were not authorized to arrest Hall due to his diplomatic status, but impounded his vehicle.
The Islamabad High Court on Friday ruled that Hall does not enjoy “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution, and ordered authorities to decide within two weeks whether to place his name on a federal Exit Control List.
Hall’s name is currently on the immigration directorate’s blacklist, which bars him from leaving Pakistan.
A US diplomat told Arab News on condition of anonymity that blocking Hall from travelling can be interpreted as him being a “hostage” of a state flouting international law. The diplomat warned of likely “reciprocity” from Washington.
Hafiz said: “In view of the case, the sensitivity of the bilateral relationship and diplomatic immunity, both governments should table talks and conclude the case quickly.”
He added that Pakistan can only exercise its legal right to expel Hall or ask the US to revoke his immunity, a step that Washington is unlikely to take.
The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, of which Pakistan is a signatory, shields serving diplomats from lawsuits and prosecution under the host country’s legal framework.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Dr. Mohammed Faisal said due to the convention, Hall is unlikely to face criminal proceedings.
Former Foreign Minister Salman Bashir concurred, saying Hall, “being a diplomat, enjoys immunity from local criminal jurisdiction.”
Pakistan has right to bar US diplomat from leaving, says ex-envoy
https://arab.news/4sxap
Pakistan has right to bar US diplomat from leaving, says ex-envoy
- A US plane landed at an air base in Rawalpindi to transport Joseph Emanuel Hall
- Authorities refused him passage to board
European leaders expected to cement support for Ukraine amid Washington pressure to accept deal
- After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings
BERLIN: European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine Monday as it faces Washington’s pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal.
After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.
Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.
Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
Zelenskyy on Sunday voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.
Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.
The Russian president also has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.
Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.
‘Pax Americana’ is over
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”
He warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”
“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned during a party conference in Munich.
Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
