US Diplomat’s Wife Fled England After Fatal Traffic Accident But Immunity Possibly 'No Longer Pertinent'

The immunity claimed by the wife of a U.S. diplomat who fled the U.K. after the death of 19-year-old Harry Dunn in a motor accident appears to be in question. In a letter to Dunn’s family, U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that the woman’s diplomatic immunity was “no longer pertinent.”

The British government, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has previously called for the U.S. to waive the immunity and extradite the woman for prosecution. Now, according to Raab, the U.S. government has decided that the woman’s immunity should no longer apply.

Mark Stephens, the Dunn family’s lawyer, has called the woman a “fugitive from British justice,” and claimed that “she wasn’t entitled to diplomatic immunity in the first place.”

While British authorities’ attempts to have the immunity waived recently have been dismissed, if it is no longer considered pertinent then a waiver would not be needed to have the woman extradited.

CNN reports that the Foreign Office has declined to comment further on Raab’s letter.

“The Foreign Secretary has been working with his American counterparts and has been in touch with the U.S. administration on this,” U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel said about the matter. “It very much seems that the lady in question wants to start cooperating with the discussions and the investigations and we should support that.”

According to BBC News, Dunn's parents are considering civil action against the diplomat's wife.