UK hits US over refusal to extradite diplomat’s wife involved in fatal crash

The United Kingdom on Friday criticized the United States for declining to extradite an American diplomat’s wife after she killed a British teenager last year as she was driving on the wrong side of the road.

British authorities have asked for the U.S. to extradite Anne Sacoolas over the August car crash that killed Harry Dunn, 19.

The request has largely been ignored by Washington.

The State Department has said that Sacoolas is protected under diplomatic immunity and that extraditing her back to Britain would set the wrong precedent.

“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 on Thursday, Reuters reports.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the U.S. ambassador in London to express his displeasure.

“We feel this amounts to a denial of justice, and we believe Anne Sacoolas should return to the U.K.,” Raab said. “The U.K. would have acted differently if this had been a UK diplomat serving in the U.S.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged President Trump to reconsider the decision, the news wire reports.