World and Nation

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Pakistan defers ruling on murder by CIA operative

LAHORE, Pakistan — The Pakistani government on Monday further postponed the resolution of the question of whether a CIA operative being investigated for a double murder is entitled to diplomatic immunity.

At a hearing at Punjab High Court here, the government said the Foreign Ministry had not clearly stated that the operative, Raymond A. Davis, was entitled to immunity.

The court ruled that the issue could be decided by the trial court in the murder case, which may begin Wednesday.

Davis, a former Green Beret employed by the CIA, fatally shot two motorcyclists in Lahore in January. He has said he did so in self-defense, and the United States has said he is a diplomat and entitled to immunity.

The Pakistani government has sought to delay decisions on the case to allow public anger over the shootings to subside. Under pressure from opposition parties and facing widespread discontent over the economy, the government has avoided making any decision that could be seen as pro-American and unpopular, and has left it in the hands of the Foreign Ministry and the High Court.

Ceding the decision of whether Davis has diplomatic immunity to the trial court will draw out the process and will not please the U.S. government.

—Waqar Gillani and Carlotta Gall, The New York Times

Rajaratnam jury hears calls

NEW YORK — Anil Kumar lived the peripatetic life of a management consultant, traveling 30,000 miles a month to visit clients across the globe. But wherever he was — Tokyo, Dublin, Mumbai — he found the time to call Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund billionaire, back in New York.

On Monday, federal prosecutors played more than a dozen of their secretly recorded telephone conversations, showcasing what they believe is overwhelming evidence of insider trading.

Kumar took the witness stand for the second day in the trial of Rajaratnam in Federal District Court in Manhattan, which is the centerpiece of a broad government investigation into insider trading on Wall Street.

A former senior executive at McKinsey & Company, Kumar has pleaded guilty to being paid nearly $2 million for passing illegal tips about his clients to Rajaratnam. He told the jury how he routinely shared confidential information about his client, Advanced Micro Devices. His testimony centered on two deals: an investment of as much as $8 billion in AMD by an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund and AMD’s acquisition of ATI, a graphics chip maker.

—Peter Lattman, The New York Times

Abbas condemns killing of Israeli Jewish family

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, expressed abhorrence Monday over the killing of five members of a family in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The emphatic condemnation, delivered over Israel’s public radio, came after Israel criticized the Palestinian leadership for what it considered to be an initially mealy-mouthed response.

“This act was abominable, inhuman and immoral,” Abbas said in a rare interview with Israel Radio, conducted in Arabic. Referring to the killing of three of the family’s young children, including a baby, he added, “Any person who has a sense of humanity would be pained and driven to tears by such sights.”

The victims, Udi and Ruth Fogel, and three of their children, ages 11, 4, and 3 months, were knifed to death in their beds late Friday in the settlement of Itamar, near Nablus in the northern West Bank. The assailants, who are still at large, are widely suspected to be local Palestinians.
—Isabel Kershner, The New York Times