By Haggai Carmon

In early 2008, Abdel Diallo, the son of UN Diplomat Hama Diallo (Executive Secretary of the Permanent Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification), was found guilty of first-degree assault and the use of a handgun in the commission of a violent crime.

A. Diallo’s appeal, in Diallo v. Maryland, relied on the fact that his father’s diplomatic immunity should carry over to him, but the State of Maryland appellate court upheld the conviction made by the circuit court of Baltimore County.

Hama Diallo was based in Bonn, Germany at the time, and although he did come to the U.S. fairly frequently on official UN business, he was not actually present in the U.S. at the time of his son’s infraction (October 2006). What he did have was a G-4 visa, valid from April 20, 2006 through April 18, 2007, which allowed him to travel to the U.S. as a foreign diplomat on official business.

The appellate court ruled that neither under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Conventions, nor under the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations did Abdel Diallo have claim to diplomatic immunity from his 25-year prison sentence.

If his father had been physically in the United States, on official UN business, at the time of the offense, Abdel Diallo may today be a free man.