Friday, March 29, 2024

UK scolds US for refusing to give up diplomat's wife involved in crash

UK scolds US for refusing to give up diplomat's wife involved in crash
January 24, 2020
LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Britain on Friday scolded the United States for refusing to extradite a US diplomat’s wife who was involved in a car crash that killed a British teenager. British prosecutors had requested the extradition of Anne Sacoolas over the crash last August in which 19-year-old Briton Harry Dunn was killed while riding his motorbike. But the State Department said on Thursday that Sacoolas had “immunity from criminal jurisdiction” and that to extradite her would set a precedent. “If the United States were to grant the UK’s extradition request, it would render the invocation of diplomatic immunity a practical nullity and would set an extraordinarily troubling precedent,” the State Department said. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the US ambassador in London to express British disappointment. “We feel this amounts to a denial of justice, and we believe Anne Sacoolas should return to the UK,” Raab said. “The UK would have acted differently if this had been a UK diplomat serving in the US ... “We are now urgently considering our options.” Dunn’s family have said Sacoolas was driving on the wrong side of the road at the time of the crash, near an air force base in central England used by the US military.