An employee at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota has come under fire after injuring a Colombian woman in a traffic accident on Saturday.
Remberto Burgos, a neurologist, told W Radio that a U.S. Embassy employee accidentally struck his wife with a vehicle as she crossed a street in northern Bogota. Twenty minutes later, Burgos claimed, when other Embassy representatives arrived on the scene, they neglected to pay enough attention to his injured wife.
“At all times, our personnel acted responsibly and appropriately,” the Embassy countered in a statement to Colombia Reports.
Burgos also claimed that the Embassy employee refused to submit to an alcohol test later at a medical clinic, citing “diplomatic immunity.” He asked that authorities further investigate the incident.
“Accredited diplomats in Colombia, the United States or any other country in the world are not subject to criminal proceedings under the principle of diplomatic immunity,” the Embassy said in a written statement. “However, the US Embassy does not use this principle to escape civil responsibility.”
