Special US aircraft lands in Islamabad giving rise to rumours
Shares
RAWALPINDI: A special US aircraft arrived at the Nur Khan Airbase on Saturday noon to take along Col. Joseph Emanuel who is facing travel restrictions after the April 7 incident.
According to ARY’s Islamabad bureau chief Sabir Shakir, a special aircraft landed at the Nur Khan Airbase to take with them Col. Emanuel. US Embassy has also reportedly handed over passport of the diplomat to FIA immigration officials.
However, according to the correspondent, the FIA team is awaiting orders from the top authorities to released the US official.
[image: US diplomat Col Joseph accident] <link>
On April 7, US Defence and Air Attaché Col Joseph Emanuel Hall jumped a red light at Daman-i-Koh Chowk and hit a motorcycle. As a result, two riders of the bike suffered injuries and one of them, 22-year-old Ateeq Baig, later died.
Col Hall had escaped arrest because of diplomatic immunity but a first information report (FIR) regarding the incident was registered with Kohsar Police Station.
Mohammad Idrees, Ateeq’s father, had filed a petition through his counsel Shahzad Akbar for placement of the diplomat’s name on ECL. CCTV footage of the Safe City Project shows the diplomat driving a white land cruiser at a high speed and hitting the motorcycle after violating the red signal.
In his petition, he claimed the police registered a FIR of the incident under pressure from media, but were not seriously following the case. He pleaded with the court to order the police to carry out a fair probe into his son’s death in the road mishap and send the diplomat behind bars.
The counsel during the court hearing contended that under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, there was a diplomatic ‘immunity’, not ‘impunity’.
Diplomatic immunity is not intended to serve as a licence for persons to flout the law and purposely avoid liability for their actions, he contended.
