Diplomatic Immunity

The rules concerning diplomatic immunity are set forth in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which has been agreed upon.
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The Italian envoy had invoked Article 32 of the Constitution of India when filing an affidavit to the Supreme Court taking responsibility for the return of the two Italian marines to India after casting their votes in the March general elections in Italy. The Indian Supreme Court opined that the Italian ambassador had waived his diplomatic immunity and could be charged for contempt. The two marines were being tried in India for the murder of two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala see the Italian Navy Marines shooting incident in the Laccadive Sea.

Borodin was alleged to have been drunk and violent towards his children, aged two and four. Police were in the area because Borodin's wife had lost control over her car while also under influence, and had rammed four parked cars near the diplomats' house. The row came at a time of tension between Russia and the Netherlands, after the Russian security services captured a Greenpeace vessel sailing under the Dutch flag, Arctic Sunrise , that was protesting against oil drilling in the Prirazlomnoye field.

In June , the New Zealand government confirmed that Mohammed Rizalman Bin Ismail from Malaysia, aged in his 30s and employed at Malaysia's High Commission in Wellington, had invoked diplomatic immunity when faced with charges of burglary and assault with intent to rape after allegedly following a year-old woman to her home. The New Zealand foreign ministry was criticized for allowing the defendant to leave the country, which was blamed on miscommunication between the foreign ministries of the two countries, as Prime Minister John Key expressed his view that "the man should have faced the charges in New Zealand".

Anger arose when the Saudi claimed diplomatic immunity. Police said that under normal circumstances driver would face investigation and possible prosecution on suspicion of negligent manslaughter, but prosecutors said they had no choice but to close the case because he has diplomatic immunity. In July , in Jordan, two Jordanian carpenters were invited to repair furniture at an Israeli diplomatic security agent's residence near the Israeli Embassy. It is believed that the Jordanians and Israeli security agent quarreled over the ongoing tensions regarding the installations of metal detectors at entry points to al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

In August , Zimbabwe first lady Grace Mugabe invoked diplomatic immunity on the 15th of August after assault charges were laid against her by a South African model. Diplomats and officials involved in drug smuggling have benefited from diplomatic immunity. For example, a Venezuelan general wanted in the United States on drugs charges was arrested in Aruba only to be released after the Venezuelan government protested his diplomatic immunity and threatened sanctions if Aruba did not release him.

The Crown Prosecution Service told the court that much of this was sold from the embassy without paying VAT and excise duty. In such situations, the employees are in a legal limbo where the laws of neither the host country nor the diplomat's country are enforceable. Diplomats have ignored local laws concerning minimum wages , maximum working hours, vacation and holidays, and in some cases have imprisoned employees in their homes, deprived them of their earned wages, passports , food, and communication with the outside world, abused them physically and emotionally, and invaded their privacy.

A particular problem is the difficulty in enforcing ordinary laws, such as prohibitions on double parking. For example, the Autobahn in Cologne , Germany was nicknamed the "Diplomatenrennbahn" Diplomatic Raceway , back when Bonn was the capital of West Germany , because of the numerous diplomats that used to speed through the highway under diplomatic immunity. Diplomats' status does not guarantee the release of impounded cars. Diplomatic missions have their own regulations, but many require their staff to pay any fines due for parking violations. A economic study found that there was a significant correlation between home-country corruption as measured by Transparency International and unpaid parking fines: State Department revoke the special DPL plates for diplomats who ignore parking summonses; the State Department denied Giuliani's request.

In cities that impose a congestion charge , the decision of some diplomatic missions not to furnish payment has proved controversial. Makharadze's claim of diplomatic immunity created a national outrage in the United States, particularly given Makharadze's previous record of driving offenses: In April , Makharadze had been charged with speeding in Virginia, and four months later, he was detained by District of Columbia police on suspicion of drunk driving.

On the basis of the media coverage, Georgia revoked Makharadze's immunity, and he was ultimately sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter and four counts of aggravated assault.

What Is Diplomatic Immunity?

Kent was not prosecuted in a U. Under the Vienna Convention , diplomatic immunity does not apply to civil actions relating to vehicular accidents, but in , the U. Court of Appeals ruled that, since he was using his vehicle for consular purposes, Kent could not be sued civilly. In , a Russian diplomat, Andrei Knyazev, hit and killed a woman while driving drunk in Ottawa. Knyazev refused to take a breathalyzer at the scene of the crash, citing diplomatic immunity. Though the Russian Foreign Ministry fired him and charged him with involuntary manslaughter, and Russian and Canadian authorities cooperated in the investigation, the case caused a political storm in Canada.

Many accused the Foreign Ministry of incompetence after it emerged that Knyazev had twice been previously investigated for drunk driving. On 3 December , in Bucharest, Romania , Christopher Van Goethem, an American Marine serving his embassy, ran a red traffic signal, collided with a taxi, and killed popular Romanian musician Teo Peter.

In a court-martial , he was acquitted of manslaughter and adultery which is still a court martial offence but was convicted of obstruction of justice and making false statements. On 9 December , in Tanzania , Canadian Junior Envoy Jean Touchette was arrested after it was reported that he spat at a traffic police officer on duty in the middle of a traffic jam in the Banana district on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam. Canada's High Commissioner , Robert Orr, was summoned by the Tanzanian Foreign Ministry over the incident, and the junior envoy was later recalled.

He left Singapore for Romania three days after the accident. On 10 April , in Islamabad , Pakistan, Patrick Kibuta, an electrical engineer in the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan caused a vehicle collision with another vehicle, while under the influence of alcohol. Kibuta, who was driving in the opposing lane, injured a Canadian citizen residing in Islamabad, who suffered multiple fractures and required surgery.

The Kohsar police impounded Mr. Charges for reckless and drunken driving were filed against Kibuta, who enjoyed diplomatic immunity. In July , Joshua Walde, an American diplomat in Nairobi, Kenya, crashed into a mini-bus, killing one man and seriously injuring eight others, who were left with no financial assistance to pay for hospital bills. He owns the cars and a drag racing team, and is a member of Qatar 's ruling family. State Department to clarify if he had diplomatic immunity. They stated he did not. However, his face was not shown on camera, and no officer witnessed the crime, so the state of California has not yet pressed charges.

He has since fled the country. The investigation is ongoing. On 14 February , a vehicle bearing diplomatic plates registered to the US Embassy got into an accident in Islamabad , Pakistan involving two residents out of which one was killed and the other survived. Murder charges were laid under Section of Pakistan Penal Code against the driver of the vehicle who is a diplomat according to Pakistani officials.

Historically, the problem of large debts run up by diplomats has also caused many problems. Some financial institutions do not extend credit to diplomats because they have no legal means of ensuring the money be repaid.

Pretty much, unless your own government gives you up.

Local citizens and businesses are often at a disadvantage when filing civil claims against a diplomat, especially in cases of unpaid rent, alimony, and child support. The bulk of diplomatic debt lies in the rental of office space and living quarters. A group of diplomats and the office space in which they work are referred to as a diplomatic mission.

Creditors cannot sue missions individually to collect money they owe. Landlords and creditors have found that the only thing they can do is contact a city agency to see if they can try to get some money back. They cannot enter the offices or apartments of diplomats to evict them because the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act says that "the property in the United States of a foreign state shall be immune from attachment , arrest and execution" 28 U.

This has led creditors who are owed money by diplomats to become more cautious about their renters and to change their rental or payment policies. When the landlord sued, the U. State Department defended the Zaireans on the basis of diplomatic immunity, and a circuit court agreed. When the landlord finally cut off the utilities, the officials fled without paying their back rent.

Diplomatic immunity - Wikipedia

The landlords reportedly later reached an "amicable agreement" with the Zaire government. The issue of abusing diplomatic immunity in family relations, especially alimony and child support , has become so widespread that it prompted discussion at the U. Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing.

Historically, the United Nations has not become involved with family disputes and has refused to garnish the wages of diplomats who owe money for child support, citing sovereign immunity.

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Fathers working as diplomats who refused to fulfill their family-related financial duties were increasing in numbers in the United Nations: Diplomats are exempt from most taxes, but not from "charges levied for specific services rendered". In certain cases, whether a payment is or is not considered a tax may be disputed, such as central London 's congestion charge.

There is an obligation for the receiving State not to "discriminate as between states"; in other words, any such fees should be payable by all accredited diplomats equally. This may allow the diplomatic corps to negotiate as a group with the authorities of the receiving country. Diplomats are exempt from import duty and tariffs for items for their personal use. In some countries, this has led to charges that diplomatic agents are profiting personally from resale of "tax free" goods.

International agreements on diplomatic immunity

The receiving state may choose to impose restrictions on what may reasonably constitute personal use for example, only a certain quantity of cigarettes per day. When enacted, such restrictions are generally quite generous so as to avoid tit-for-tat responses. Quintero made it all the way to the airport before members of the United States Secret Service caught up with him. He initially denied taking the devices, but after being confronted with security video, Quintero claimed it was purely accidental, gave the devices back, claimed diplomatic immunity and left New Orleans with the Mexican delegation.

He was eventually fired for the incident.

Why Diplomats Can't be Arrested

The following chart outlines the immunities afforded to foreign diplomatic personnel residing in the United States. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Diplomatic immunity disambiguation. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. If that state did not conduct itself appropriately, its diplomat would be held responsible.

Sometimes the consequences could even be fatal. Nowadays, the opposite applies: International agreements on diplomatic immunity continue to be indispensable. All over the world, cases arise every day in which diplomats and representatives of international organisations require international legal protection.

Fortunately, Dutch diplomats rarely fall victim to terrorism or any other kind of violent attack nowadays. But there have been some close calls too, in which Dutch diplomats have been held hostage, assaulted or narrowly escaped bomb blasts or gunfire. Home Topics Embassies, consulates and other representations Diplomatic immunity Search within English part of Government.

Diplomatic immunity Diplomats who represent their country abroad enjoy diplomatic immunity. Contact the Public Information Service. The pilot, in turn, kicked things up a notch by sending out a "potential terrorist" status report, which led to the usual motions for this kind of situation, including sending out fighter jets and actually alerting President Obama about a terrorist scenario. You know, usual diplomat stuff. Wikipedia "I'm going to break him out of jail. I'm actually going to murder him.

Now fresh with a bucketload of terrorist accusations and a pretty big-ass bill for getting those fighter jets up on his back, and likely facing some serious jail time, what did al-Madadi do? If you said immediately invoked diplomatic immunity and waltzed away to Qatar scot-free , then congratulations! You have a good sense of what's coming in the rest of this article. In other words, it is a peaceful event with the sole purpose of strengthening the bonds between the three nations At the meetings, it was the habit of the participants to leave their phones on a table in a high security room outside the conference rooms because nothing turns a friendly meeting into full-scale fisticuffs like a constantly buzzing BlackBerry.

So a number of White House staffers thought nothing of parting with their phones for the meeting -- that is, until said meeting ended and the phones were nowhere to be found. Since each and every now-phoneless person was a political pundit and therefore had a BlackBerry filled with numbers and messages from some really big names and presumably also with the kind of dirt that would make J.

Edgar Hoover raise an eyebrow , a full-on freakout ensued. Then someone thought to check the security cameras, which showed crystal clear footage of Curiel entering the high security room, filling his bag with sweet, sweet American phones and waltzing away without a worry in the world. Yes, I would like a new ringtone every week. People are being so nice today! The Secret Service sent teams of agents rushing to the airport, where the Mexican delegation was by then waiting for their flight back home.


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In true Hollywood fashion, the agents got to the airport in the nick of time, stopped the plane and confronted Curiel Let that sink in for a moment. The man had blatantly stolen half a dozen phones from high ranking American officials on camera and his goddamn plane was stopped by the Secret Service. And he proceeds to give them a "Problem, officer? Getty "It's my taillight, isn't it? Of course, his tone somewhat changed when the agents actually showed him the security camera footage.

Not for the better, mind you: He now maintained that the whole thing was accidental and he had just found the phones, thought they were lost and was going to give them to the driver of his car to bring back to management at the meeting place. The agents considered pointing out that this really didn't explain why he denied taking them in the first place, or why he took them at all, or why he was taking them to freaking Mexico , but Curiel had already proceeded to the next stage of his plan: In the end, the agents did get the phones back, but the diplomatically immune Curiel was free to fly home.

And while the Mexican government did eventually fire his ass and subject him to a legal slap on the wrist of some kind, the fact remains that a man who got an inch away from stealing a whole lot of phones full of extremely confidential information from the freaking U. A diplomatic bag is, by law, any old item that is identified as such and capable of holding stuff, be it a bag, box, satchel or the crusty sock from under the diplomat's bed. The idea behind the concept is as simple as it is prone for misuse: Anything and everything inside a diplomatic bag is untouchable by law enforcement.

Basically, we're talking diplomatic immunity for inanimate objects. And while most countries use their bags for boring stuff like classified files, some countries have noticed their potential and gotten creative. You can basically commit any crime you want, as long as said crime can be crammed inside a container designated as a diplomatic bag.

Well, in Nigeria took issue with a former minister of theirs, Umaro Dikko , who had moved to England. Dikko was a bit of a troublemaker, speaking out against the current government and criticizing them at every turn. Not being content with pissing off just one country, he was also in the habit of lashing out at Israel. So, Nigeria and Israel decided to team up to bring Dikko back to Nigeria and shut him up.

Operation "Let's kidnap the shit out of this guy" was a great success, with Dikko yanked off the streets of London, drugged and taken to the airport by the joint Nigerian-Israeli squad. But how to get him in the plane? They would place Dikko in a wooden crate, tag it as a diplomatic bag and haul him off to Nigeria.

No one can do anything even if the guy wakes up and starts banging the lid, because diplo magic. Getty "No, no, I understand. Releasing me would just cause unnecessary paperwork.