Police to arrest Shelter Afrique MD for assault

By David Odongo

The Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko has ordered police to arrest and charge Shelter Afrique managing director Alassane Ba with assault.

Tobiko’s order comes days after Prime Minister; Raila Odinga voiced strong concern against Mr Ba challenging police to take action against the diplomat.

Raila wanted the diplomatic immunity lifted so that Ba could be arrested for assaulting the Finance Director Karen Njeri Kandie on Thursday June 28 at around 11:30 am at the Shelter Afrique headquarters along Longonot Road, Upper Hill.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 protects Ba. It is an international treaty that defines a framework for diplomatic relations between independent countries and specifies the privileges of a diplomatic mission that enable diplomats to perform their function without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country.

Ms Kandie said Mr Ba attacked her on June 28 at 11.30am, and then sent her on compulsory leave for reporting the matter to the police.

The last time Mr Ba worked in his native Mauritania was in 1991 as an economist for the World Bank.

In this story we profile some of the rows which have dogged some diplomats.

Another case that sparked anger from civil societies involved the Nigerian High Commissioner. In May 2011, Nigerian High Commissioner Dr Chijioke Wilcox Wigwe allegedly battered his wife Tessi Iyi Wigwe but couldn’t be arrested since he was protected by diplomatic immunity.

Kenya Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) demanded that the diplomatic immunity be lifted so that he can face the law, but the envoy was quietly withdrawn from his post by his government.

The couple’s marriage had allegedly degenerated to a level where they were only communicating via written notes. In an interview the wife revealed that on the particular day, the envoy had passed her a note asking if his dinner was ready.

She in turn, didn’t write a note back but lashed out. “I asked him why he was asking for dinner yet even when it has been prepared for him, he doesn’t eat it. That’s when he started beating me,” the wife was quoted. They had been married for twenty years and had five children.

ABUSE

Worldwide, there have been ridiculous cases where diplomatic immunity has been abused. In 1984, Mossad in conjunction with Nigerian secret police kidnapped Umaru Dikko from the streets of London. The politician who had fled into exile had been very vocal against the Nigerian government and he had been charged with treason. Dikko was abducted, drugged and placed in a crate and labelled ‘diplomatic baggage’

By law, anything and everything inside a diplomatic bag is untouchable by law enforcement. However, Dikko woke out of the stupor and the noise attracted custom officials who weren’t very pleased with the open abuse of diplomatic bag usage. However, proper documentation that would have ensured that the cargo could not be inspected was not provided. As a result, customs officials were able to open the crates without violating the convention and foil the kidnapping. Dikko was taken to a hospital; he was uninjured. Following the incident, Britain expelled two members of the Nigerian High Commission. In addition, diplomatic relations with Nigeria were broken off for two years. A famous diplomatic incident occurred four years ago in Tanzania where a Canadian Envoy Jean Touchette was arrested after he spat at a traffic police officer. The Tanzanian Foreign Ministry summoned Canada’s High Commissioner, Robert Orr, over the incident, and the junior envoy was later recalled.

Another weird incident where diplomatic immunity was abused involved the Burmese ambassador to Sri Lanka. In 1979, the ambassador found out that his wife was cheating on him. He shot her in the head then built funeral pyre in his front garden, and burned his wife's body in full view of the press and the police, who were unable to do anything because of his immunity. He stayed as ambassador for a few months and then was recalled back to Burma.

Another weird case was by Benny Kusni, who was an honorary counsel at the Senegal Consulate in Singapore. Kusni decided to turn the consulate into a casino. Together with ten other investors, they profitably ran the casino for a few months.

Eventually, the police were notified and raided the building since consulates; unlike embassies don’t have diplomatic immunity. Kusni was arrested but he declared he had diplomatic immunity so he was released.

A few hours after being released, the police remembered that consulates aren’t protected by diplomatic immunity so they rearrested him. Another case that involved diplomatic immunity was in On November 13, 2006, in New York City, Fred Matwanga, Kenyan diplomat to the UN, was taken into police custody by officers responding to reports that he had assaulted his son; but he was released after police discovered he had a United States Department of State-issued credential identifying him as a diplomat

Under the Vienna Convention, creditors cannot sue diplomatic missions individually to collect money they owe. A group of diplomats and the office space in which they work are referred to as a diplomatic mission. Diplomats are also exempted 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.

Diplomats also get tax-exempt real estate for their official business, but some use the exempt to run businesses from the premises. Diplomats from the Philippines, for example, ran a bank, a restaurant and even an airlines office from their New York embassy, — for which they neglected to pay more than $1 million in taxes. Since the city can’t go after the diplomats directly, it had to sue the Philippines government. In 1992, officials from Zaire in New York took diplomatic immunity too far when they refused to pay rent to their landlord. The rent accumulated to $ 400,000 and the landlord sued but the court rejected his application, stating that an embassy can’t be sued under the Vienna Convention. The landlord had to cut off water, gas and electricity to force the diplomats out of the embassy.