LAHORE, Pakistan, March 3 (UPI) -- A lower court in Pakistan ruled Thursday that U.S. Embassy employee Raymond Davis accused of murder isn't protected by diplomatic immunity.
The provincial court in Lahore ruled Thursday neither Davis nor the Pakistani government had provided documentary evidence showing he is a diplomat, al-Jazeera reports.
Davis is accused of killing two Pakistani men in January. Davis claims the men were trying to rob him and he shot them in self-defense.
Washington maintains Davis is an embassy employee. Several media outlets, citing unnamed sources, said Davis was working for the CIA in Pakistan.
The immunity issue is under review by a high court in Lahore, which could overturn the lower court's decision.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, apologized to Islamabad over the incident though Washington maintains Davis is protected by the Vienna Convention.
Pakistan had tried to trade Davis for a suspected al-Qaida member convicted of shooting U.S. personnel in Afghanistan but Washington rejected the idea.
Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist serving 86 years for attempted murder, was convicted of trying to shoot U.S. officers and FBI agents in an Afghanistan police station in 2008. She had been hunted as an al-Qaida operative since 2003 and is married to Guantanamo inmate Ammar al-Baluchi, nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Siddiqui has said she was held in secret American prisons, including Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, before the shooting, which U.S. officials have consistently denied.
