Labour have branded Dominic Raab either ‘a liar or an incompetent’ over his handling of the Harry Dunn affair and the flight of his spy ‘killer’.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal Harry’s mother Charlotte Charles directly asked the Foreign Secretary whether Anne Sacoolas was in the CIA and claimed his answer was ‘untruthful’.
Mr Raab is under mounting pressure to come clean over when he found out the American fugitive – who has admitted responsibility for the teenager’s death in a car crash – was a US agent.
Under fire: Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has been branded either ‘a liar or an incompetent’ over his handling of the Harry Dunn case by Labour
Labour have backed calls from the family of the tragic 19-year-old for a full public inquiry into the ‘cover-up’ after The Mail on Sunday’s bombshell revelation last week that she had been a CIA agent.
The development that Sacoolas had served as a US intelligence officer sparked uproar, with Harry’s family speaking of their ‘devastation’ and accusing Raab of hiding the truth from them.
And the exact circumstances of how Sacoolas was able to flee Britain in the wake of the fatal collision outside RAF Croughton last August have come under fresh scrutiny.
Last October, Mr Raab gave a lengthy statement to MPs about the case but gave no mention of Mrs Sacoolas’s history of espionage and insisted she was merely a spouse of a diplomat.
But Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said ‘it stinks to high heaven’ and accused Mr Raab of misleading the Dunn family and Parliament or being ‘grossly incompetent’ in allowing Sacoolas to flee in the days following the accident.
Scrutiny: Anne Sacoolas pictured in Virginia last month was originally said to be the spouse of a diplomat but it has since emerged she is actually a CIA agent
She added: ‘While you’re not allowed to call a fellow MP a liar in the House of Commons, all I’ll say is that Dominic Raab either hadn’t bothered to find out the truth about Anne Sacoolas before his October statement to Parliament, or knew the truth but chose not to share it.
‘That is exactly why I agree with the Dunns in calling for an urgent public or parliamentary inquiry into the handling of Harry’s case.
‘So we can get to the bottom of a basic question like: when did the Foreign Office first learn what Mrs Sacoolas’s real job was?
‘Because if it wasn’t until after they let her go, they are guilty of gross incompetence.
‘But if it was before, and they still failed to stop her leaving, they are guilty of grave indifference to the terrible pain being suffered by the Dunns, and owe them both an apology and a long-overdue explanation.’
Last night, Harry Dunn’s mother welcomed Labour’s backing and said she was ‘very, very concerned’ that the Foreign Office was ‘hiding things that they don’t want us to know about and that of course raises our suspicions there has been a cover-up from the very off.’
Charlotte Charles added: ‘If that is not the case then prove it to us. If they have nothing to hide, come forward and disclose everything.
‘We don’t understand why they are hiding things if they have done everything in the good and proper way.’
And the family’s lawyer Radd Seiger last night said they were ‘sickened’ by the fallout, adding: ‘It’s not so much about Harry Dunn any more, it’s about the next poor family that suffers this sort of fate.
‘We sadly are now in a place where we don’t trust anyone in Government any more.’
And he revealed Mr Raab had been asked directly whether Sacoolas was a spy during a meeting with the family.
‘We asked that question specifically and he dodged it,’ Mr Seiger claimed. ‘He said she’s an ex-state department official.
‘They have a duty of candour. We now know exactly why Donald Trump is protecting her and we are deeply suspicious the UK Government waved her off at the airport.’
Ms Charles said that she was ‘frustrated’ at the answer Raab gave her at the meeting on January 27 at the Foreign Office in London. She added: ‘His words were that she was an ex-government official.
‘So he didn’t lie to us but he certainly wasn’t truthful either. I don’t see why he withheld that information. He could have told us and he asked us to keep it confidential.’
Labour’s fresh intervention comes after a torrid week for Mr Raab, with calls for him to be sacked in the House of Commons over his treatment of Harry Dunn’s family.
Tragic: Harry Dunn died near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire after his motorbike was in collision with a car being driven by Sacoolas
On Wednesday, Jeremy Corbyn used his weekly showdown with Boris Johnson to highlight The Mail on Sunday’s revelation, claiming ‘now we know the Foreign Secretary misled the Dunn family… will the Prime Minister commit to his removal from office tomorrow in his reshuffle?’
He added: ‘I now ask the Prime Minister straight this question: is Anne Sacoolas being shielded from justice because she’s a former CIA officer?’
Mr Johnson swerved the question and stuck to the Government’s rigid official statement that Mrs Sacoolas was simply the spouse of a diplomat.
Today, The Mail on Sunday poses a number of key questions the Government must answer about the circumstances around Mrs Sacoolas fleeing to the US last August, why more was not done to stop her leaving and why the family of Harry Dunn were not told that she had fled for more than 11 days after Mr Raab had found out.
Fighting for justice: Andrea Leadsom has vowed to fight on in support of her constituents, the Dunn family and said she was supporting their family
Last night, sacked former Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom, who left Government on Thursday, vowed to get justice for the Dunn family – who are her constituents in South Northamptonshire.
She told the MoS: ‘I am supporting Harry’s family in their efforts to make sure this cannot happen again.’