Pakistan bars US diplomat from leaving

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan

Pakistan on Saturday barred a senior U.S. diplomat accused of killing a Pakistani youth and injuring another from leaving the country following a court order, officials and local media said.

A C-130 plane landed at Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi on Saturday morning to carry Col. Joseph Emanuel Hall, the U.S. Defense attache stationed in Islamabad, a senior Interior Ministry official told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The plane took off after the Interior Ministry informed the U.S. Embassy about a high court’s order that bars the diplomat from leaving the country till the disposal of the case against him, the source added.

Hall was stopped at the immigration counter and informed that he could not leave the country, the official said.

The U.S. Embassy officials accompanying the defense attaché contacted the Interior Ministry but they were outrightly told that the diplomat could not fly out of the country unless the court orders otherwise, the official added.

“We have also informed the U.S. Embassy that he cannot fly out of the country following the court orders,” he further said.

Richard Snelsire, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, refused to deny or confirm the event.

“We do not want to comment on that,” the spokesman told Anadolu Agency.

In early April, Hall jumped a red light in Islamabad killing a motorcyclist and injuring a passenger.

The Islamabad High Court on Friday ordered the Interior Ministry to put the diplomat's name on its Exit Control List. Persons on the list are prohibited from leaving Pakistan.

Diplomatic relations between the two sides have hit a low ebb since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January last year, mainly due to a clash of interests in war-torn Afghanistan.

The two sides also imposed travel restrictions on each others’ diplomats stationed in Washington and Islamabad earlier this week putting further strain on already frosty relations between the two sides.

In August 2017, Trump accused Pakistan of providing safe havens to militants fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan, a charge Islamabad denied.

Also, this February Pakistan was placed on a terror financing “grey list” by a global money-laundering watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a move supported by Washington.