Minister failed in ‘duty of candour’ by not disclosing that woman had been CIA agent, spokesman says

The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, failed in his “duty of candour” by not disclosing to the family of Harry Dunn that Anne Sacoolas, the American woman charged with causing the 19-year-old’s death by dangerous driving, had previously been a CIA agent, the spokesman for the family, Radd Seiger, has said.

He also disclosed that the constituency MP and business secretary Andrea Leadsom had not been told of Sacoolas’s status by cabinet colleagues and was at a loss for words when informed by the family at the weekend.

Sacoolas has been charged by the UK Crown Prosecution Service with causing Dunn’s death by dangerous driving in August, but soon after the accident she was flown out of the country along with her husband and family. A UK government request to extradite her has been rejected by the US state department.

It was revealed by the Mail on Sunday at the weekend that Sacoolas had previously been a high-ranking CIA officer, although at the time of the accident, it was her husband, also a CIA officer, that was listed as a diplomat, conferring immunity on him and his family.

Sacoolas and her husband were both living at RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire when the accident occurred, and the Foreign Office said that as a spouse of a CIA officer at the base, she too enjoyed immunity.

The revelation that she had also been a CIA officer, albeit not serving, helps explain the US government’s refusal to grant the UK government request for her to be extradited to stand trial.

The Foreign Office has not formally confirmed that Sacoolas worked for the CIA, and it is likely British officials would regard it as improper to disclose the identity of CIA agents to members of the British public even in this highly sensitive and unusual situation.

Seiger said the family had asked Raab directly whether there was anything in Sacoolas’s background that could explain the US government determination to protect her. According to Seiger, he said she was a former state department employee, a form of words that masked the motive for the US government determination to keep her out of the courts.

Harry Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, sent BBC Radio 5 live a message in which she said: “My life is in pieces. Anne Sacoolas has destroyed my life as I knew it while she is carrying on with hers. It is deeply, deeply upsetting and totally wrong.”

Seiger said: “The news had floored the family since it was a question they had been asking of the Foreign Office directly. The parents have looked Dominic Raab directly in the eye and asked him across a table: is she more than a spouse? I am afraid he has failed in his duty of candour.”

Seiger said Raab merely confirmed she had worked for the state department, but he added: “Working for the state department and being a CIA officer are in my mind two completely different things, and totally germane to the issue.

“For the foreign secretary not to tell us what the true position is, and to hear it from a newspaper is just jaw-dropping because you are trying to build a relationship with the government. But relationships are built on trust and trust is built on truth. If the parents ask him a question he is duty bound to answer it openly and honestly.”

He accused the government of trying to suppress information, and so leave the anguished family for months in the dark.

Seiger added: “The Ministry of Defence is clearly not talking to the Foreign Office and the Foreign Office is not talking to our constituency MP Andrea Leadsom.

He said of Leadsom: “I don’t think she knows what to say. You cannot have a situation where you are finding things out through the press when the government should be talking to you.”

He added Sacoolas had previously been in the UK between 2013 and 2015.