Police in Bogota arrested the son of a prominent UN official on Wednesday for the alleged sexual abuse of a year-and-a-half-old child.
The 23-year-old American citizen was reportedly caught allegedly exposing his private parts in front of the baby.
According to the baby’s parents, the UN official tried to claim diplomatic immunity for his son and cited mental conditions in an attempt to prevent his arrest.
The United Nation’s peace observation mission in Colombia said on Wednesday that the suspect, Christopher Bolger, does not enjoy diplomatic immunity.
Prosecutors charged him with the crimes of attempted rape and abusive sexual acts.
Foreign minister Maria Angela Holguin specified that immunity is “only grantzed to the members of the Mission in the exercise of their functions.”
The lawyer for the victim’s family told media that the alleged act was committed in the social area of the building where the families live. The victim’s seven-year-old brother was also in the room. The children’s nanny allegedly alerted neighbors who detained Bolger until police arrived.
“We feel that the situation in principle should receive imprisonment. But at this time, the Prosecutor General’s Office is clear about the situation. We are concerned about the mental disorder in terms of defense argument,” according to the parent’s lawyer, Juan Navarrete.
“I don’t understand how his parents allow the young man to live in the community,” the lawyer said.
According to Navarrete, the suspect should remain in preventative custody to not endanger the public if he suffers a mental condition. If he is cleared of mental disorder he could serve more than four years in prison.
United States’s criminal law “provides ‘extraterritorial jurisdiction’ over certain sex offenses against children. Extraterritorial jurisdiction is the legal authority of the United States to prosecute criminal conduct that took place outside its borders,” according to the US Department of Justice.