The husband of the U.S. consul general in Istanbul has reportedly claimed diplomatic immunity after a car crash caused while drinking and driving.
Mounir Elkhamri, who is the husband of the U.S. consul general in Istanbul, Julie A. Eadeh, was reportedly driving a consular vehicle on one of the main roads in Istanbul when he crashed into another vehicle at around 5:40am in the morning earlier today (Thursday).
Police have confirmed that the other driver was taken to hospital after the accident on the city’s Buyukdere Avenue.
Elkhamri was allegedly tested for drinking and found to have 2.4 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit in Turkey is 0.5 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath.
He was however not arrested by cops after he reportedly announced “I have diplomatic immunity”, and then left on foot.
The U.S. Embassy in Turkey denied the reports and said in a statement obtained by Newsflash on 15th December: “The U.S. Consul General’s husband has not been involved in a vehicle accident and was not in Istanbul at the time of the reported collision. We are in contact with the Turkish authorities on this matter.”
The crash follows a similar incident in the UK in which the wife of a US diplomat used diplomatic immunity to leave the country after a fatal car accident.
Harry Dunn, 19, died after his motorcycle was in a collision in August 2019 with a car driven by Anne Sacoolas near RAF Croughton, an air force base in the English county of Northamptonshire that is used by the U.S. military.
Sacoolas left Britain shortly after the accident, claiming diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution. The United States then refused to extradite her.
