Diplomats gone wild: Denmark unable to punish offenders
The Local Denmark - [email protected]
Published: 23 Nov, 2016 CET.
Updated: Wed 23 Nov 2016 12:33 CET
A dozen employees of foreign embassies have escaped legal trouble over the past two years by invoking diplomatic immunity, Metroxpress reported on Wednesday.
The newspaper filed a freedom of information act and received police reports on a foreign diplomats that had been redacted by the Danish Foreign Ministry.
Among the offences that foreign diplomats have gotten away with in Denmark are drunken driving, theft and public masturbation, according to the obtained documents.
In one case, a 47-year-old male diplomat was caught exposing himself to women at a Copenhagen swimming pool just three months after he was found masturbating in a shower stall next to two naked women at the same pool.
Another report detailed a diplomat getting into a physical altercation with police officers and then telling them to “go back to Jutland with all your pigs. Tomorrow you are both fired.”
The countries of the diplomats were censored out of the police files, Metroxpress reported.
In all of the incidents, Danish police were unable to pursue any charges.
“People with diplomatic status can only be prosecuted in Denmark if their immunity is revoked,” Copenhagen Police legal consultant Claus Pedersen told Metroxpress.
The diplomatic immunity doesn’t mean that the offenders got off scot-free, however. The masturbating man and four drunken drivers were recalled to their home countries after their incidents.
The Foreign Ministry’s head of protocol, Marie-Louise Overvad, said that foreign diplomats rarely run afoul of Danish law.
“When you look at the many diplomats who are in Denmark, there are just a few cases each year,” she told Metroxpress.
Foreign diplomats are sheltered from prosecution in their host countries through the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, but Overvad said there are clear expectations that all foreign officials behave appropriately.
“We can’t have diplomats driving around drunk and endangering residents and we can’t have diplomats exposing themselves in pools, she said.
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The newspaper filed a freedom of information act and received police reports on a foreign diplomats that had been redacted by the Danish Foreign Ministry.
Among the offences that foreign diplomats have gotten away with in Denmark are drunken driving, theft and public masturbation, according to the obtained documents.
In one case, a 47-year-old male diplomat was caught exposing himself to women at a Copenhagen swimming pool just three months after he was found masturbating in a shower stall next to two naked women at the same pool.
Another report detailed a diplomat getting into a physical altercation with police officers and then telling them to “go back to Jutland with all your pigs. Tomorrow you are both fired.”
The countries of the diplomats were censored out of the police files, Metroxpress reported.
In all of the incidents, Danish police were unable to pursue any charges.
“People with diplomatic status can only be prosecuted in Denmark if their immunity is revoked,” Copenhagen Police legal consultant Claus Pedersen told Metroxpress.
The diplomatic immunity doesn’t mean that the offenders got off scot-free, however. The masturbating man and four drunken drivers were recalled to their home countries after their incidents.
The Foreign Ministry’s head of protocol, Marie-Louise Overvad, said that foreign diplomats rarely run afoul of Danish law.
“When you look at the many diplomats who are in Denmark, there are just a few cases each year,” she told Metroxpress.
Foreign diplomats are sheltered from prosecution in their host countries through the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, but Overvad said there are clear expectations that all foreign officials behave appropriately.
“We can’t have diplomats driving around drunk and endangering residents and we can’t have diplomats exposing themselves in pools, she said.
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