Boris urges US to give up diplomat’s wife over fatal crash

LONDON: Boris Johnson has urged the US to reconsider its decision to give immunity to a diplomat’s wife wanted by British police over a road crash that killed a teenager.

Vowing to raise the case of 19-year-old Harry Dunn with the White House if necessary, Johnson said: “I do not think it can be right to use the process of diplomatic immunity for this type of purpose.”

Police have written to the US embassy in London to demand immunity is waived for 42-year-old Anne Sacoolas, who left the UK after the crash despite telling officers she did not plan to do so.

Harry, of Banbury, died on August 27 after his motorbike collided with a car close to RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, a military base used by the US Air Force.

Sacoolas is believed to have been driving on the wrong side of the road. Northamptonshire’s chief constable Nick Adderley said US authorities had been appealed to in “the strongest terms” to apply a waiver and “allow the justice process to take place”.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to a hospital in Watford, the Prime Minister said: “I think everybody’s sympathies are very much with the family of Harry Dunn and our condolences to them for their tragic loss.

“I must answer you directly, I do not think that it can be right to use the process of diplomatic immunity for this type of purpose. And I hope that Anne Sacoolas will come back and will engage properly with the processes of law as they are carried out in this country.

“That’s a point that we’ve raised or are raising today with the American ambassador here in the UK and I hope it will be resolved very shortly. And to anticipate a question you might want to raise, if we can’t resolve it then of course I will be raising it myself personally with the White House.”

The US embassy in London confirmed the incident had involved a vehicle driven by the spouse of a US diplomat who had departed the country, but added that diplomatic immunity was “rarely waived”.

Downing Street confirmed Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had spoken with the US ambassador Woody Johnson and said he would be raising the case with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.