On June 27th, we were proud to release Raymond Davis’s highly anticipated book The Contractor. In it, he offers up a firsthand account of the series of events he found himself in which drew international attention and triggered a diplomatic crisis between the US and Pakistan.
Earlier this month, Raymond sat down with Mark Mazzetti from the New York Times for an interview about this exciting new book. In it, they rehash the string of events in Raymond’s life that drew international attention; from his work as a security contractor for the US Consulate in Lahore, to the day he killed two Pakistani men in self-defense, to his 49-day imprisonment and subsequent release. Raymond’s freedom was precariously balanced upon the strained relations between the US and Pakistan, and ultimately, it was a last-minute procedural change that brought about his release. A switch from civil court to Sharia law made it so that the US could offer the victims’ families diyyat or “blood money” in exchange for Raymond’s freedom, a controversial outcome and topic of debate even today.
While there has been plenty written about Raymond’s story, in The Contractor, we finally hear the perspective of the man at the center of it all. Watch the full New York Times interview here.