One month ago, in Bucharest, Romania, a localy well known bass guitar player, Teo Peter, was leaving with a taxi the "Rock in my heart" festival, where he was one of the main organisers. At a crossroad, an American marine, leaving the US Embassy, where he was working, in a jeep, driving with excesive speed and not giving priority, as he should at that crossroad (it was even a sign indicating this), smashed into the taxi and killed Teo Peter. The police arrived, followed by news teams who filmed the smashed cars and the obviuosly drunk marine. The marine was taken to a lab, where he refused the alcohol analysis, and he was let free, because he had diplomatic imunity. During the next 12 hours, the marine was taken out of the country, up to an US military base in Germany and later in America. As it was posted public later, two months previously, the same guy had another car crash in front of the Chinese Embassy, but then the victim was only a tree. Clearly something was wrong with the marine getting out of the country, while the police investigation was only at the beginning. To reinforce that idea, after a few days, a team of American prosecutors arrived to "help" in the investigations. They soon claimed that the sign from the crossroad wasn't visible. A news team filmed the sign from where was coming from in the evening of the crash, and the sign was perfectly visible. Look, I'm not saying now the marine is gulty. This is for a court to decide. And I don't even care if the trial should take place in Romania or the US. But, A MAN WAS KILLED AND IT SHOULD BE A TRIAL, no metter if the dead is someone known, like Teo Peter, or just a homeless. But, from what is going on, it seems it won't be any trial. The US Navy and the State Department are doing everything to prevent that, and it wouldn't be the first time (a girl was killed in car crash a few years ago at Moscow by a US diplomat and everything ended with a cover-up). And what is even worse, this is going on in a country who has a signed strategical partnership with the US, who's NATO member and who has right now troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the US? Maybe, but it's a little tough, considering the distance. They could sue the embassy too, but this wasn't my point. I was thinking about State Department and US Navy behaviour, because the marine wasn't a fugitive trying to escape, he was uncorrectly protected by its own authorities, who had all the right to help him, but in the limits of the law. The US attitude is what worries me about this case and other similar, like those from Moscow.
