THE INDEPENDENT: Staff from foreign embassies in Britain have escaped prosecution despite allegedly committing a range of offences including human trafficking, sexual assault, threats to kill and drinking and driving.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said that a number of diplomats were responsible for “serious offences” which could carry a prison sentence of one year or more, but had escaped charges because of diplomatic immunity. These included a Saudi Arabian national who allegedly carried out a sexual assault while another from his country was supposedly engaged in human trafficking, as was a diplomat from Sierra Leone. Both the sexual assault and trafficking cases involved domestic staff brought into the UK to work at homes of diplomats, it is believed.
A Pakistani diplomat allegedly made a threat to kill someone, a Nigerian could have faced charges of actual bodily harm and one from Cameroon allegedly neglected a young person - a member of his family. A Gambian diplomat was arrested for shoplifting after leaving a London department store with unpaid for items including pairs of socks, the man is believed to be a “repeat offender”.
Diplomats from Brazil, Germany, Russia, Tanzania, the US, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) were stopped drinking and driving and one allegedly drunk Bahraini diplomat was driving uninsured. >>> Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent | Monday, June 28, 2010
