The USA is stepping up the pressure on Pakistan for the release of its national, Raymond Davis, with US Secretary of State Clinton pressing President Zardari in a telephone call last week and then COAS Gen Kayani in their meeting on the sidelines of the Munich conference this weekend. She is reported to be threatened Gen Kayani that if he was not let off, Pakistan would be 'in deep trouble. The USA is insisting, in the face of all the evidence and all the law, that Davis is entitled to diplomatic immunity which would enable his release. The State Department spokesman Crawley, however, acknowledged that the suicide of the widow of one of Davis victims as a 'tragedy. The USA should realize that her death provides as additional reason against the release of Davis, apart from the fact that he did not merit it on the grounds of diplomatic immunity. As a matter of fact, only the US government is insisting on Davis having diplomatic status, something which has been exposed by the USAs own documentary evidence as a patent falsehood, Everyone else knows that only lawyerly subtleties would get him that status, which would result in his being released. It should have become clear by now that the USA has latched on to this argument only because it believes that Pakistan, being a client state, should not mind the killing of its citizens, while, by the admission of its own President, it does not mind 'collateral damage. To prevent Raymond Davis from appearing in a Pakistani dock is a goal towards which the USA is working. This should provide Pakistan an example of the value which a state is supposed to place upon its citizens, but it must not be complicit in this act. The Pakistan government has defied the judiciary enough not to afford the defiance which handing Davis out of Pakistani jurisdiction would mean. It must not indulge in more, especially when the Pakistani people are not backing the defiance implicit in letting Davis go.