The United States Embassy has dispelled the impression of involvement of Blackwater world-wide in training of Pakistani police and security personnel at Sihala Police Training Academy, saying that there was no involvement of private security company in training and the United States officials had provided VIP protection security training to Pakistani police since 2003.
Over the years, over 1750 police officers have participated in 97 intensive anti-terrorist short courses and the US has provided millions of dollars in equipment to support the Pakistani police, the spokesman of the US Embassy Richard Snelsire said in a statement here on Tuesday.
He said that the US officials had trained 138 Pakistani police officers, including 33 members of the Prime Minister's security team in a long training course of VVIP Security. Moreover, planned training programmes at the facility were specifically designed to train additional security staff for both the President and the Prime Minister-at the request of, and in co-operation with the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he said.
"Several newspapers reported that Pakistani security officials trained by the company formerly known as Blackwater have been providing security for Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani", the spokesman said, adding that the report is completely baseless and untrue.
He said that the private security company formerly known as Blackwater has never participated in any security training for senior Pakistani government officials. The training programme is conducted in co-ordination with the Ministry of Interior and the Punjab Police Academy in Sihala, using subject experts from a variety of the US law enforcement agencies, the spokesman maintained.