Diplomatic immunity

[Gob]

Anne Sacoolas is 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, Sky News reports. She has claimed diplomatic immunity.



The 42-year-old Sacoolas 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.

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.”

Trump, on October 9, said he spoke to Johnson on the phone about the incident. “We’re going to speak to her very shortly and see if we can do something. It was an accident, a terrible accident,” Trump told reporters. “We’re going to speak with her and see what we can come up with, so that there can be some healing. “There’s tremendous anger over it. It’s a terrible incident, there’s tremendous anger, and I understand the anger from the other side.”

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.

More on the story here....

Disgusting abuse of the principle by this bitch.

[Lord Jim]

Maybe Boris can did up some dirt on Elizabeth Warren, and then Trump will have diplomatic immunity waived...

That's the way US foreign policy is conducted these days...

[BoSoxGal]

The Daily Mail ran an article that quotes Trump as saying that it’s hard to drive on the wrong side of the road - and that he would not waive her immunity.

Matthew Broderick killed a couple of people (mother and daughter, maybe?) in Ireland years ago the same way - driving the wrong side of the road. As I recall he didn’t serve any jail time, without immunity being an issue - it was reduced to careless driving and a very small fine.

I imagine such accidents with tourists or expats at fault aren’t entirely uncommon - overcoming the muscle memory of a lifetime of driving is required and I suppose the psychology is similar to that which has folks forgetting a quiet sleeping child in the rear seat out of easy vision. Here’s a case where another American caused a death by wrong way driving in Scotland and is pending sentencing - the article says this week: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co ... e-49641733

I do agree that the immunity issue is problematic; this was hotly debated in D.C. the year I began law school, after a diplomatic immunity waiver was asserted by a Georgian who killed a teenager in a DUI car crash in DuPont Circle. His country waived his immunity and he was held accountable and sentenced to a US prison:

Ex-Diplomat Gets 7 Years for Death of Teen in Crash
DEC. 20, 1997

WASHINGTON — A former Republic of Georgia diplomat, whose nation waived his immunity, was sentenced Friday to seven to 21 years in prison for the death of a Maryland teenager in a car crash.
Gueorgui Makharadze, who had been drinking heavily before the Jan. 3 crash, said he could only “pray for forgiveness.”

It will be at least six years before Makharadze, formerly the second-highest-ranking diplomat in the Georgian Embassy, is eligible for parole. Assistant U.S. Atty. Katherine Winfree said the sentence sends a message that “diplomatic immunity is a shield and not a sword.”

The case stirred debate about diplomatic immunity before Georgia, a former Soviet republic, waived protection for Makharadze.

“I would hope that diplomats, like any other motorists, would think twice before getting behind the wheel of the car when they’re intoxicated,” Winfree said.

Makharadze, 36, pleaded guilty in October to one count of involuntary manslaughter and four counts of aggravated assault. He could have been sentenced to up to 70 years in prison.

The five-car pileup on Dupont Circle near Embassy Row killed 16-year-old Jovianne Waltrick of Kensington, Md., and injured four others.

Speaking in a barely audible voice, Makharadze told the court: “I only wish I could undo what I have done.”

Turning to Viviane Wagner, the dead girl’s mother, he said: “I want you to know I will bear the guilt and pain of having caused the death of your daughter every day.”

In handing down the sentence, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Harold Cushenberry said the former diplomat “voluntarily chose to ignore the risks” of drinking and driving.

The judge praised Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze for waiving Makharadze’s diplomatic immunity, calling the decision “courageous.”

He said the relatively harsh sentence was based on Makharadze’s record of driving offenses.

In April 1996, Makharadze was charged with speeding in Virginia. Four months later, he was detained by District of Columbia police who suspected him of drunk driving but released him after he claimed diplomatic immunity.

[Crackpot]

Is it muscle memory to flee the scene?

[BoSoxGal]

Is it muscle memory to flee the scene?

Of course not, and I asserted no such thing.

[Crackpot]

No you just completely failed to even mention it.

[Lord Jim]

Is it muscle memory to flee the scene?

It could be, if fleeing the scene is something you do a lot...

[MajGenl.Meade]

He's a trip, ain't he just?

Secret briefing notes accidentally shown by Donald Trump have revealed a US diplomat's wife involved in a car crash that killed a British teenager will not be brought back to the UK for trial.

A card for the US president marked "secret" instructed Mr Trump to respond to a direct question about whether Anne Sacoolas would be returned to the UK to say she would not.

It said: "(If raised) Note, as Secretary Pompeo [the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo] told [Foreign Secretary, Dominic] Raab, that the spouse of the US government employee will not return to the United Kingdom."

https://news.sky.com/story/harry-dunn- ... s-11831935

[BoSoxGal]

No you just completely failed to even mention it.

Do you get a little hard on every time you follow me around this board and shove your nose up my ass with your nasty little personal attack posts, CP?

I made no defense of the woman whatsoever, and agreed that I found an assertion of diplomatic immunity problematic. I offered substantive, relevant contributions to the topic in the form of two cases related to the primary issues at hand.

Yet you offered nothing whatever of substance to the discussion, you have merely pathetically attempted to make me out to be some kind of bad guy by personally attacking me in your post. You do this in 95% of the posts you write in reply to mine.

What is your fucking problem with me? Are you just a pathetic fucking infantile boy?

Prove you aren’t by stopping this nonsense once and for all; reply to the fucking topic and issues and stop trying to make it personal.

PS - Sorry if I hurt your widdle feelings by unfriending you on Facebook. It’s been years; get over it already.

[BoSoxGal]

No you just completely failed to even mention it.

By the way cunt, so did Gob. It’s not in the portion of the article he posted and he makes no mention of it in his comments. But that’s ok because he has a penis and I have a vagina, right? Or just because you have some kind of twisted obsession with me.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Thanks for jogging my memory on the Georgian diplomat, BSG - I had a vague recollection of it but Google wasn't a lot of help given that I had no details beyond Eastern Europe. And he actually was a diplomat with genuine immunity. The general consensus in the UK press is that Ms Sacoolas does not have bona fide Vienna Convention immunity.

I think that the UK courts would not have given Ms Sacoolas a prison sentence - there is no evidence that she was drunk (AFAIK) and that this was anything but a tragic accident. As someone who has gone back and forth between RH and LH driving for 40 years I know what works for me. Drive ONLY on familiar roads for the first few days that you are behind the wheel. If necessary have someone else drive to get you familiar with those roads. There's a real opportunity here which has gone now: I'd like to know what instructions the US embassy gives its people in LH driving countries (mainly Commonwealth).

I think US roads are often poorly signposted. I hate that I have no idea whether the other guy has a stop sign unless I can see the back of it. I know that the thruway ahead means I have to go left once I am on it but there is no indication whether that's a left turn off the road I'm on or there's a right ramp which goes over/under the access road. I like the British GET IN LANE. But one sign I would take from the US which AFAIK has not made it to Britain is the 'Wrong Way' sign: I would place it particularly by US bases and ports where Europeans are likely to be driving on the 'wrong' side of the road for the first time.

A suitable memorial to Harry Dunn would be some effort to guard against this sort of accident. A combination of education and signage would help. I hope that she was not driving a US LHD vehicle. I had an American friend in the 70s who shipped his Gremlin over to England. I thought it was a death trap but no doubt it helped him with young persons of the opposite persuasion.

[Crackpot]

[liberty]

Is it muscle memory to flee the scene?

Was it a hit and run? Did she flee the scene of the accident?

[liberty]

Maybe Boris can did up some dirt on Elizabeth Warren, and then Trump will have diplomatic immunity waived...

That's the way US foreign policy is conducted these days...

She is running for office if someone has dirt on her it is their duty to share it with the world. When one runs for public office one is no longer a private person. Her entire life should be investigated.

[liberty]

No you just completely failed to even mention it.

By the way cunt, so did Gob. It’s not in the portion of the article he posted and he makes no mention of it in his comments. But that’s ok because he has a penis and I have a vagina, right? Or just because you have some kind of twisted obsession with me.

Yea, hear (read) that cunt.

[Joe Guy]

And, as reported by the Washington Post, our president explained the situation very clearly:

"The woman was driving on the wrong side of the road. And that can happen, you know. Those are the opposite roads. That happens. I won't say it ever happened to me, but it did," Trump told reporters Wednesday."

source

[RayThom]

Maybe MI6 will infiltrate her Northamptonshire neighborhood and exact some Royalesque medieval "justice."

Hey, car accidents happen all the time, regardless how coincidental they may be, right?

[BoSoxGal]

Is it muscle memory to flee the scene?

Oh hey, CP - after being a total dick to me, it turns out you’re totally full of shit too - she did NOT flee the scene of the accident, which is clear from the full article Gob posted.

She left the UK and returned to the US with zero criminal charges pending - so an entirely legal action.

Again, I don’t defend her assertion of immunity and I don’t think it applies to her in this circumstance - she’s not being persecuted by a foreign government for political purposes.

But fleeing the scene didn’t happen and you fucked with me for no fucking reason. Asshat.

[ex-khobar Andy]

She left the UK and returned to the US with zero criminal charges pending - so an entirely legal action.

Not sure about that. Yes - she didn't flee the scene in the sense of a hit and run but she did in the sense that she was interviewed and she assured the police that she had no plans to leave the country. She then did leave the country. Now the Northants fuzz probably should have confiscated her passport or otherwise made sure that she did not in fact flee the country - I don't know the legalities of that - but is leaving the country when you are obviously the chief witness to a death "an entirely legal action"?

My guess is that she would be charged with driving without due care and attention and pay a fine, max £5000 if Wikipedia is to be believed. I doubt that there would be prison time because there is no indication that she had been drinking which would take the charge up to dangerous driving.

[wesw]

yeah, crackp0t, d0n t make it pers0nal...



I ap0l0gize f0r n0t being here...

...I ll try t0 stick ar0und ...N0T..., and draw the crazy bitches fire....