French consulate employee is not a diplomat, but police wait for final word from MEA.
Amid confusion over whether rape accused French consulate official Pascal Mazurier enjoyed diplomatic immunity or not, the city police waited for a green signal from the ministry of external affairs in New Delhi to arrest him when DNA went to press. The Centre’s nod for the city police to arrest Mazurier is likely to come only on Tuesday morning.
A statement from the French embassy, however, brought some clarity on the issue in its statement issued on Monday: “The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) does not provide for immunity of jurisdiction for acts committed outside the exercise of consular duties (Article 43).”
Mazurier has been accused of raping his three-and-a-half-year-old daughter in a complaint filed by his wife Suja Mazurier with the High Grounds police on Thursday night. She filed the complaint after discovering that afternoon that her husband was sexually abusing her minor daughter in her absence.
Two medical examinations conducted on the little girl and one on Mazurier have indicated (but not yet proved) that the crime was committed.
However, although four days have elapsed since the complaint was filed the city police have been left in a bind over the status of Mazurier’s diplomatic privilege and are awaiting a signal from the Centre, which in turn is waiting for approval from the French embassy in Delhi.
Suja claimed that her husband does not enjoy diplomatic immunity as he holds a service passport. But additional commissioner of police, T Suneel Kumar, said they were yet to get a confirmation on whether Mazurier indeed enjoyed diplomatic immunity.
“We have written a letter to the ministry of external affairs seeking clearance to take further course of action and are waiting for the reply. We have not received any official communiqué from the Union government, based on which we will take appropriate action,” he said. “We have confiscated his (Mazurier’s) passport to stop him from going abroad. But we could not ascertain whether he has the privilege of diplomatic immunity or not since there are different categories in the French government.”
Meanwhile, Suja gave a statement before the Karnataka State Commission for Child Rights and filed a complaint seeking the protection of her children’s rights.
Even as the Bangalore police remain tightlipped about the final report conducted on the child, sources said all medical tests indicated that the child had been raped. The report of the final test, conducted at Bowring Hospital, was handed over to the police.But they refused to divulge the contents.
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