US envoy in deadly crash leaves country

AUTHORITIES DID NOT ARREST HALL BECAUSE HE HAD DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

Pakistan has allowed a US diplomat involved in a fatal traffic accident to leave the country, an official said yesterday, following a weeks-long stand-off and street protests over the incident.

The diplomat — described as the defence attaché in an earlier report — departed Islamabad late on Monday, a senior Pakistani government official told journalists on condition of anonymity.

“We can confirm that the American diplomat, who was involved in a tragic car accident on April 7 in Islamabad, has departed Pakistan,” Nolen Johnson, a State Department spokesman, said in an email.

Pakistani authorities made no comment about the sudden departure of the diplomat, who found himself at the centre of the latest diplomatic dispute between the two countries. Local news media outlets reported the departure of the diplomat, citing anonymous official sources.

The diplomat, Col. Joseph Emanuel Hall, a military attaché at the US Embassy in Islamabad, is accused of having run a red light and fatally hitting a 22-year-old man on April 7. Another passenger on the bike was injured.

Authorities did not arrest Hall because he had diplomatic immunity. But as a furore here grew over the accident, he was barred from leaving the country, and Pakistani officials said he faced criminal charges.

A C-130 cargo plane that was sent to fly Hall out of Pakistan had to return last week after Pakistani authorities refused to let him board.

Pakistani officials had been demanding that the US waive Hall’s diplomatic immunity, but US officials refused.

Travel restrictions

Alice G. Wells, a senior State Department official, visited Islamabad last month to discuss the case.

Last week, the Islamabad High Court ruled that the colonel did not enjoy full diplomatic immunity and gave the government two weeks to decide whether he should be placed on the Exit Control List. The United States and Pakistan imposed travel restrictions on each other’s diplomats last week as the dispute continued to simmer.