ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. diplomat Raymond Davis might not have the diplomat immunity in Pakistan that Washington claims he has, a former official said.
Washington and Islamabad are at odds over the arrest of Davis, an official who Washington claims was a "technical officer" at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. Davis stands accused of the fatal shootings of two Pakistanis in January.
The United States insists the shootings were in self-defense and says Davis should be released on diplomatic immunity grounds. Pakistan says the matter is in courts, which have extended the detention of the American while Pakistani officials determine his diplomatic status.
Former Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that when he spoke with government officials in January, it didn't appear that Davis had diplomatic immunity, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reports.
Since it is a signatory of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, including diplomatic immunity, "we expect Pakistan to recognize that Davis is a diplomat," said U.S. President Barack Obama in statements Tuesday.
Qureshi, however, said that his reading of the Vienna Conventions as well as Pakistan's Diplomatic Law of 1972 led him to believe that "the blanket immunity as being demanded by the U.S. Embassy was not valid."
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, traveled to Pakistan to try to ease tensions between the United States and Pakistan.
