America must put an end to this shameful evasion of justice
AMERICA’S shame over the death of British teenager Harry Dunn deepens by the day. As his alleged killer Anne Sacoolas, a US spy, refuses to return to the UK to face trial, she continues to be protected by her country.
Mr Dunn, 19, died in a crash near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire in 2019.
Now it has emerged Sacoolas’s intelligence role failed to be mentioned in official notes between the US embassy in London and the Foreign Office when she fled British shores.
The first note, written by officials at the embassy three days after the crash, only labelled Sacoolas as
“the spouse of a member of administrative and technical staff of the embassy”.
The 43-year-old later flew back to America while claiming diplomatic immunity after the incident.
After she had returned to the States, Northamptonshire
Police charged Sacoolas with causing death by dangerous driving.
However, to their deep shame, the US has rejected the UK’s extradition request.
Now, as an American court assesses a civil claim by Harry’s family against the spy, Sacoolas refuses to give her reasons as to why she fled.
Instead, a court in Virginia heard her work – Sacoolas and her husband were both employed by a US intelligence agency – was “especially a factor” in her return to America.
The court has been told the decision to withdraw the Sacoolas family from the UK was for “issues of security”.
Since arriving back in the States, Sacoolas has refused to comply with British authorities or return to face charges over Harry’s death. Her defence barrister said she fears she will “not get a fair trial in the United Kingdom” should she return.
A pathetic argument, given it is her actions alone that have cast her in such a bad light, in what really seems to be a genuinely terrible accident after she became confused over which side of the road to drive on.
When later asked by the judge, why she “fled” the UK, her barrister John McGavin, said he could not respond “completely candidly” adding: “I know the answer, but I cannot disclose it”.
Given the admission in open court by Sacoolas’s counsel that US intelligence services employed her at the time of the crash, the UK authorities must now urgently reinvestigate whether she had diplomatic immunity.
The High Court has previously ruled Mrs Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity at the time of the crash because dependants of US Embassy employees were entitled to immunity, but the employees themselves were not.
The “anomaly” was closed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) last year.
Under the agreements at RAF Croughton, dating back to 1995, anyone working at the base from the US as part of the “administrative and technical staff ” would have their immunity pre-waived.
It is unfathomable that a person from any other nation would be allowed to hide
Harry Dunn whose alleged killer, Anne Sacoolas, was “employed by an intelligence agency in the US” at the time of the fatal road crash behind such immunity and not be brought back to face justice.
Sacoolas is a mother herself, the court has been told, who “left Harry to suffer as he lay face down on the side of the road, afraid of dying, fully conscious with multiple broken bones, including open fractures on both legs and both arms, and internal injuries”.
How can she cope with such a weight on her conscience?
I have seen the life she now leads in an affluent area outside of Washington, swanning around in her SUV.
The US government’s lying by omission to the UK is not the correct and ethical way to treat its greatest friend and ally.
It was to be expected under Donald Trump.
But President Joe Biden, a man who lost his first wife to a driving accident which he claimed was criminal, should put this wrong right and end America’s shameful evasion of justice.