Friend of Diplomat’s Wife Admits Theft : Crime: Kauser Levherz, a companion of Aisha Khan, Pakistani consul general’s spouse, says she’s guilty of shop-lifting.

A friend of Aisha Khan, wife of the Pakistani consul general in Los Angeles, said Thursday that she, not Khan, was guilty of the shoplifting that led to the arrest of both women Tuesday in a Van Nuys store.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever done,” said Kauser Levherz in a telephone interview from Ontario, Canada, where she lives.

“Aisha had the goodness of heart to take me shopping, and now, because of that, I have destroyed an important Pakistani family . . . I should go drown myself.”

Khan and Levherz were detained by private guards at the Price Costco store at 6100 Sepulveda Blvd., and then arrested, booked for shoplifting and released on their own recognizance. One of the women repeatedly protested that she had diplomatic immunity from arrest and displayed documents identifying herself as part of a foreign diplomat’s family, police and store employees said.

Khan, the consul, at first denied that his wife was involved in any such incident. Levherz said he did not know what happened because the women decided not to tell him about the arrests.

Levherz said she was a house guest of the Khans in Los Angeles and while shopping with Aisha Khan “in a moment of stupidity,” slipped a bottle of pain relievers into her purse. “I can’t even remember what kind.”

She said she plans to tell the judge at her trial that Aisha Khan “was in no way an accomplice or even aware of what was happening.”

The Van Nuys Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, however, said that after reviewing reports on the citizen’s arrest made by store employees, they determined there was evidence to charge both of the women.

A Price Costco spokeswoman said Thursday that it is the store’s policy not to comment on such cases.

Police said the women will be ordered to appear before a judge but no date has been set and the city attorney’s office has not yet received the paperwork.

A State Department spokesman in Washington said Thursday that Khan does not have diplomatic immunity from such charges.