A Sudanese man who fled police after he allegedly groped a woman in a Manhattan bar early Sunday morning will not face charges because he enjoys diplomatic immunity, it was learned on Monday.
Hassan Salih, 36, is reported to have grabbed a 23-year-old woman’s breasts and buttocks while cavorting at Bar None on Third Avenue, according to the New York Post.
When the alleged victim complained, the bar’s bouncer grabbed hold of Salih until police could arrive.
During questioning, Salih began running. Officers eventually caught up to him, arrested him, and put him in a police cruiser.
Salih then produced a diplomatic immunity card.
After investigators confirmed that he was an employee for the United Nations, they had no choice but to let him go free.
Hassan Salih, 36, is reported to have grabbed a 23-year-old woman’s breasts and buttocks while cavorting at Bar None on Third Avenue. But because he works at the United Nations (seen above), he has diplomatic immunity from prosecution
Salih is listed on the website of the Sudanese Mission to the UN as a ‘second officer’ – a mid-level position requiring at least five years of experience.
Diplomats are given immunity from the host nation’s laws as prescribed by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. According to the treaty, which has been ratified by 191 countries, including the United States, ‘diplomats must not be liable to any form of arrest or detention.’
Article 29 of the treaty states that diplomats are immune from civil or criminal prosecution.
The document also stipulates that family members of diplomats living in the host country are given the same protections as the diplomats themselves.
Host countries are legally permitted to declare diplomats persona non grata, which would give the foreign emissaries a window of time to prepare to leave their post and return home.
If a diplomat refuses to leave despite being declared persona non grata, the host country is entitled to strip him or her of diplomatic immunity.
Last month, the daughter of a foreign diplomat staffed at the German Embassy stabbed a schoolmate twice in the shoulder with scissors at a preppy international school in Washington, DC.
The young girl avoided prosecution because of her father’s diplomatic immunity.