Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for an American diplomat’s wife accused of killing a British teenager by driving dangerously.
Anne Sacoolas invoked diplomatic immunity after a crash in Northamptonshire in August that killed 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn near a British military base that houses U.S. troops.
Sacoolas was allowed to leave the United Kingdom following the incident, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in January rejected an extradition request from the British government. She is alleged to have been driving on the wrong side of the road at the time of the crash.
“If the United States were to grant the U.K.’s extradition request, it would render the invocation of diplomatic immunity a practical nullity and would set an extraordinarily troubling precedent,” the State Department said in January.
Dunn’s parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, received an email from Northamptonshire Police informing them of the so-called red notice from the international policing organization, which states that “should she leave the USA the wanted circulations should be enacted,” according to The Independent.
Charles and Dunn have called for a judicial review into how the British Foreign Office handled their son’s death, and their lawyer has accused Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab of a “scandalous attempted cover up of the truth.”
U.S. officials have declined to meet with the family, while Yael Lempert, deputy chief of mission at the American Embassy in London, told Andrea Leadsom, the family’s member of Parliament, that American diplomats meeting with the family “would not be appropriate.”
Gen. Nick Carter, the head of the U.K.’s armed forces, has said he will raise the issue with his American colleagues, telling Dunn and Charles he is “very supportive of positive engagement between you and the US base commander,” according to The Independent.
Raab criticized the United States’ response in January, saying, “We feel this amounts to a denial of justice, and we believe Anne Sacoolas should return to the U.K. The U.K. would have acted differently if this had been a UK diplomat serving in the U.S.”