US refusal ‘a denial of justice’

Britain’s foreign secretary has condemned the US government for its refusal to extradite an American woman charged over the death of a British teenager in a road accident.

The British government ‘‘would have acted differently if this had been a UK diplomat serving in the US’’, Dominic Raab said yesterday.

On Friday, the US government denied a British extradition request for Anne Sacoolas, an American diplomat’s wife.

Sacoolas admitted driving on the wrong side of the road when she collided with 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn last August, but she claimed diplomatic immunity and fled to the US. She has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving, which is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

The high-profile case has prompted interventions by both US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Dunn’s parents have mounted a vigorous campaign, appealing directly to Trump and meeting him at the White House last October.

Raab called the US decision a’’denial of justice’’, and said the British government was ‘‘urgently considering our options’’.

Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, said it was ‘‘a blow, but it’s one that we expected’’. She added that the family would continue pushing to get Sacoolas back to Britain.

Andrea Leadsom, Britain’s business secretary and the MP representing the Dunn family’s constituency, met the US ambassador to discuss the case.

The US government ‘‘is effectively saying it’s OK for American service personnel to come to the UK, kill our children and get on the next plane home’’, family spokesman Radd Seiger said.

Seiger said that if nothing worked under Trump, the family planned to take the fight to a new US administration in the future.

Under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, family members of diplomats are covered by immunity while living abroad. But countries can decide to waive immunity to allow a diplomat or family member to face serious charges.

Sacoolas’s lawyer, Amy Jeffress, has said that a 14-year jail sentence would be a disproportionate punishment.

AP British Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom, left, listens as Harry Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles speaks after their meeting in Towcester, England yesterday, following the decision by the United States not to extradite a woman involved in a road accident that killed Dunn.