St Lucia has confirmed that it has received a request from the Protocol Directorate of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to grant a waiver of the diplomatic immunity of Dr. Walid Ahmed Juffali, the Saint Lucian Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in the United Kingdom, a statement from the Office of the St Lucian Prime Minister said yesterday.
The waiver is to enable an answer from Juffali to a claim for additional financial relief in the High Court in London from his ex-wife, whom he had divorced in Saudi Arabia. The Protocol Directorate says that the request was made after it received correspondence from the legal firm representing the ex-wife of Dr. Juffali, Hughes Fowler Carruthers.
The statement said that the Office of the Prime Minister first became aware of the request in two articles published in two British Newspapers on December 27, 2015, The Mail On Sunday and the Telegraph.
“The Government of Saint Lucia has always stated that it would not respond to requests from private lawyers to lift the immunity of Dr. Juffali or any of its diplomats as such requests can only come from the receiving state where the diplomat is based. To do otherwise would be to expose our diplomats, wherever they are assigned, to the whims of private lawyers.
“However, matters of this nature are governed by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961. Both Saint Lucia and the Government of the United Kingdom are signatories to the Convention, and are bound by its provisions, procedures and conventions.
“Saint Lucia enjoys close political and diplomatic ties with the United Kingdom and will, therefore, follow the well established diplomatic channels to address this matter while protecting its integrity as a sovereign state”, the statement said.
Castries has also faced questions about the appropriateness of the appointment of Jaffali as a diplomat and his record of attendance at IMO meetings.
