LONDON, UK. (THECOUNT) — Anne Sacoolas, the U.S. diplomat’s wife who fled from the United Kingdom to America after a crash that killed 19-year-old British motorcyclist Harry Dunn in Northamptonshire, has been charged with causing the death of the teenager by dangerous driving, reports SkyNews on Friday morning.
Sacoolas had previously claimed diplomatic immunity, but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office claimed she did not have the luxury of diplomatic immunity.
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“The Crown Prosecution Service has now announced it has charged Mrs Sacoolas, 42, with causing death by dangerous driving. It comes after Northamptonshire Police interviewed Mrs Sacoolas in America and handed their completed file of evidence on Mr Dunn’s death to the CPS last month.”
(FCO) informed Dunn’s family about Sacoolas’ status as a diplomat saying, “The US have now informed us that they too consider that immunity is no longer pertinent.
“We have pressed strongly for a waiver of immunity, so that justice can be done … Whilst the US government has steadfastly declined to give that waiver, that is not the end of the matter,” the BBC quoted Raab’s letter saying.
“We have looked at this very carefully … the UK government’s position is that immunity, and therefore any question of waiver, is no longer relevant in Mrs Sacoolas’ case, because she has returned home.”
Sacoolas, 42, is married to Jonathan Sacoolas, public records show. It is not clear what position he holds in the U.S. government that has provided him and his wife diplomatic immunity. The couple lives near RAF Croughton, a British Royal Air Force base currently being used by the U.S. Air Force as a communications station. Sky News referred to it as a “spy base.”
Sacoolas had only been in the U.K. for three weeks, The Telegraph reports.
Dunn was killed in a head-on collision near the base on August 27. His family and British government officials have spoken out about the incident in order to call for justice for Dunn, encouraging Sacoolas to return to Britain to face questioning and potential charges. She has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing at this point. Officials in the U.K. have encouraged the U.S. to waive Sacoolas’ diplomatic immunity, reports Heavy on Monday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday, “I do not think that it can be right to use the process of diplomatic immunity for this type of purpose. 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 U.K., 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 U.S. State Department issued a statement to CBS News on Monday expressing sympathy and condolences to Dunn’s family but added, “questions regarding a waiver of immunity with regard to our diplomats and their family members overseas in a case like this receive intense attention at senior levels and are considered carefully given the global impact such decisions carry; immunity is rarely waived.”
Sacoolas and her husband could not be reached for comment by Heavy and it is not clear if they have hired an attorney.
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