Outrage as UK waives immunity for 13 Brits

THE Foreign Office has waived diplomatic immunity for 13 British citizens accused of crimes in the United States since 1999, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

Britain has not refused a single request from Washington to prosecute a serving diplomat in that time. But it is understood the US has not reciprocated over its officials during the same period.

The news will reignite the row over the death of Harry Dunn, the teenage motorcyclist hit by a car driven by American Anne Sacoolas near the RAF base where her husband worked. She was later charged with causing death by dangerous driving but by that time she had fled the country.

The US has refused to extradite her, claiming that, as the wife of a serving diplomat, she has immunity.

The Foreign Office insists it was powerless to stop Mrs Sacoolas, an ex-CIA spy, leaving. Officials later made efforts to get Mrs Sacoolas’s immunity waived. Mr Dunn’s family is taking the Government to the

High Court and it is understood the Foreign Office intends to use its ‘surprise and disappointment’ at the US refusal to waive immunity as part of its defence.

Under the 1961 Vienna Convention, diplomats and their families cannot be arrested or prosecuted. But there are side treaties between the US and UK.

Last night, Dunn family spokesman Radd Seiger said news Britain had waived immunity for its diplomats ‘lays bare the extent to which there is no special relationship between the US and UK’.

He called for Mr Dunn’s case ‘to be the last of its kind’, adding: ‘Never again will we the people allow the US government to treat us with utter disdain, those in power in Whitehall clearly being unable to stand up to their bullying and oppression.’