������Ƶ

LONDON: An independent review in Britain criticized police on Wednesday for failing to arrest a US diplomat’s wife after she killed a British teenager in a car accident before fleeing the country in 2019.

The accident in which Harry Dunn, 19, died became a diplomatic issue between the UK and United States, leading to his family meeting US President Donald Trump at the White House.

Anne Sacoolas, who was driving on the wrong side of the road outside the US military base at RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, claimed in the ensuing days to have diplomatic immunity.

Sacoolas, whose husband was an intelligence official and has herself been reported to have been a CIA operative, left Britain soon after hitting Dunn on his motorbike in the August 2019 accident.

The review, commissioned by Northamptonshire’s chief constable, Ivan Balhatchet, said the decision not to arrest her was partly based on “information received that Anne Sacoolas was in shock.”

“While the welfare of any person is a concern for officers, this should not have prevented the arrest of Anne Sacoolas,” it said.

The review said officers made the decision believing Dunn’s injuries to be survivable and that had this not been the case they would have made an arrest.

But it found that after his death there was no further discussion documented of whether Sacoolas should be detained.

“The review has potentially highlighted a culture of not arresting... which could lead to evidence not being obtained and influencing a charging decision or a sentence on conviction,” it said.

The review also criticized the Northamptonshire force’s former chief Nick Adderley.

After relations with Dunn’s family broke down there were “multiple areas of direct involvement from CC (Chief Constable) Adderley which had a detrimental impact” on the senior investigating officer and their team as they tried to “rebuild trust,” it added.

After her return to the United States, Sacoolas refused to go back to the UK to face court proceedings.

She eventually pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving via video link from the US to a London court.

She was handed an eight-month prison sentence in December 2022, suspended for 12 months, meaning she would not serve jail time unless she committed another offense in that time.

Reacting to the review, Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles said it “confirms what we have known for years — that we were failed by the very people we should have been able to trust.”

“Harry was left to die on the roadside. Sacoolas was not arrested, even though the police had every power to do so,” she said.

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Israeli troops raided two Palestinian refugee camps in the occupied West Bank’s north overnight, the military said, as Israel presses offensives on multiple fronts.

The military said that at “around 4:00 a.m. Israeli forces entered Balata camp,” near the northern city of Nablus, for “a routine counter-terrorism operation.”

It added that the troops had been deployed to the nearby Askar camp prior to the operation in Balata camp.

Imad Zaki, head of the popular services committee of Balata camp, also said that the military began its raid at 4:00 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Wednesday.

“They closed all entrances to the camp, seized several homes after evicting their residents, and ordered the homeowners not to return for 72 hours. These homes were turned into military outposts and interrogation centers,” Zaki said.

“The soldiers are conducting house-to-house and neighborhood-to-neighborhood searches, destroying the contents of homes and physically assaulting the residents,” Zaki said.

He added that life had been “largely paralyzed” for the camp’s residents but that no injuries were reported.

In a separate statement, the military said that its forces had “neutralized” one Palestinian overnight in the West Bank village of Al-Walaja near Jerusalem.

They said that as the troops were deployed in the area, a Palestinian armed with a knife “attempted to stab (Israeli) soldiers who were operating in the area and steal their weapons.”

“The soldiers responded with fire and neutralized the terrorist,” the army said, using a term it normally uses when someone has been killed.

The Israeli military said Tuesday that its forces had been active in various parts of the Jenin area, in the northern West Bank.

It said in a statement that its forces had arrested five Palestinian militants suspected of planning attacks on Israel.

Throughout the Gaza war, violence in the West Bank – a separate Palestinian territory – has soared, as have calls to annex it, most notably from Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Since the start of the war in October 2023, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 939 Palestinians, including many militants, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Over the same period, at least 35 Israelis including civilians and soldiers have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids, according to official Israeli figures.