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Interpol red notice issued for arrest of Anne Sacoolas Interpol red notice issued for arrest of Anne Sacoolas
(about 2 hours later)
Suspect in UK death of teenager Harry Dunn fled to US claiming diplomatic immunitySuspect in UK death of teenager Harry Dunn fled to US claiming diplomatic immunity
An Interpol red notice has been issued for the arrest of Anne Sacoolas over the death of the British teenager Harry Dunn. An Interpol notice has been circulated worldwide making Anne Sacoolas effectivly a fugitive from justice if she sets foot outside her native United States.
Sacoolas, 42, was charged in the UK with causing death by dangerous driving in December but an extradition request submitted by the Home Office was rejected by US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, in January. Sacoolas was charged in the UK withcausing the death by dangerous driving of 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn last August.
In an email to Dunn’s parents, Northamptonshire police said “the wanted circulations should be enacted” should Sacoolas leave the US. The US refused to accept an extradition warrant, saying she enjoyed diplomatic immunity at the time of the crash. Her husband worked at a CIA spying base, RAF Croughton in Northampton.
Dunn, 19, was killed when his motorbike crashed into a car outside a US military base in Northamptonshire in August last year. She and her family left the country with the knowledge of the Foreign Office a fortnight later. The Foreign Office agreed she had diplomatic immunity, a point disputed by lawyers working for Dunn’s family.
Sacoolas, the wife of a US intelligence official based at RAF Croughton, claimed diplomatic immunity after the crash and was able to return to her home country, sparking an international controversy. Boris Johnson and the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, have both asked for Sacoolas to be extradited, but the political pressure has led nowhere. Donald Trump instead suggested compensation and tried to engineer a meeting in the White House between Sacoolas and Dunn’s parents.
On 30 April a spokeswoman for the US state department reiterated its position that at the time of the accident and for the duration of her time in the UK, the driver had immunity from criminal jurisdiction. Radd Seiger, a lawyer for the Dunn family, said Northamptonshire police had confirmed that the Interpol notice had been issued, adding that this meant in the Foreign Office’s view she did not have diplomatic immunity at the time of her initial arrest. “Red notices would not be served on valid diplomats,” he said. “It means she would be arrested if she sought to leave the United States.”
He continued: “It is time for her to come back to the UK and on behalf of the family I urge the authorities both in London and Washington to make that happen. It is time to do the right thing.” He said she would receive a fair trial in the UK.
Seiger said: “It is a monumental scandal. The UK government know it and that is why Harry’s parents were treated like lepers. Both governments were and are terrified that this was all going to be exposed. Well thanks to the free press it has been. Parliament must now launch a full-scale inquiry into what happened.”
Seiger is specifically angry that the Foreign Office, within days of the accident, agreed with US lawyers that Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity, when this claim was at best arguable in court.
A red notice has been described as an international wanted person’s notice but is not in itself an arrest warrant.
Interpol issued nearly 14,000 red notices last year. It cannot compel the law enforcement authorities in any country to arrest someone who is the subject of a red notice.
Each member country decides what legal value it gives to a red notice and the authority of their law enforcement officers to make arrests.