Block Assange extradition, Dunn’s family urges govt

LONDON: The family of Harry Dunn has called for Julian Assange not to be extradited as long as the US refuses to send the suspect in the teenager’s death back to the UK.

The 19-year-old’s parents have said they believe any further extradition requests by the US should be refused after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected the return of the woman involved in their son’s death, Anne Sacoolas, last month.

Their spokesman Radd Seiger said the Foreign Affairs Committee had accepted their request for an inquiry into the extradition, and to the diplomatic immunity granted to Sacoolas.

Earlier this month, the Foreign Office said they had “no plans” to launch a public inquiry into the case — saying the case had been handled “properly and lawfully throughout”.

The teenager was killed when his motorbike crashed into a car driven by Sacoolas outside a US military base in Northamptonshire on August 27 last year. Sacoolas, the 42-year-old wife of an intelligence official based at RAF Croughton, was granted diplomatic immunity after the crash and sparked international controversy after being allowed to return to her home country.

She was later charged with causing Dunn’s death by dangerous driving. Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles and father, Tim Dunn, said they were told by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab that the Government was “reviewing all our options” after Pompeo’s refusal to extradite Sacoolas.

Speaking about Assange’s potential extradition to the US, Seiger said: “Harry Dunn’s family understand and respect the importance of extradition procedures between nations and the huge public interest that attaches to extradition. No one is above the law and no one must be allowed to evade justice if they manage to flee a country, whether diplomat or not.

“That said, in refusing the UK’s perfectly lawful request to extradite Anne Sacoolas, and not even following the legal and judicial process the US/UK Treaty calls for, the US has launched the single greatest attack on the so called special relationship between the countries in modern memory.”

Seiger continued: “The US is not behaving like an ally and has effectively thumbed its nose up at the UK and ignored the clearly laid out provisions in the treaty, effectively tearing it up.”

Seiger’s comments followed Saturday’s protest in which hundreds of Assange’s supporters marched through London ahead of next week’s full extradition hearing.