Immunity loophole ‘never intended’ to be used for Anne Sacoolas – ex-minister

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy A former Foreign Office minister who signed off an agreement which allowed the US government to assert diplomatic immunity on behalf of Anne Sacoolas has said it was “never intended” to be used in that way. “Because, actually, knowing the Foreign Office lawyers who would have drawn up that agreement at that time, I would have been very surprised if there had been a loophole in that agreement – and certainly no intended loophole.” Sir Tony added: “What was seeking to be achieved was that some officials working for the US government at Croughton should be given diplomatic immunity when they were working at Croughton. “It was never intended to result in a situation where someone like Mrs Sacoolas, who was supposedly the wife of someone working at Croughton, could claim she was protected and do a runner.” Questioned on whether he believed the US would have acted in the same way had the incident happened while he was a minister in the 1990s, Sir Tony said: “I can’t remember a similar incident where the US government had claimed diplomatic immunity to avoid a US citizen being dealt with for what is essentially a serious traffic offence. “So the way in which the US government has behaved in this case has been pretty bizarre.” Commenting on the so-called loophole which allowed the US government to assert immunity on Sacoolas’s behalf, Sir Tony said: “In 1994 the head of the legal department at the Foreign Office was a very formidable individual, and I cannot imagine the Foreign Office lawyers at the time knowingly creating a loophole of any kind.