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Old July 15, 2010, 02:51 PM   #26
sousana
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The country the bodyguard represents issues them a diplomatic passport and includes them on the list of diplomats scheduled to enter the country. As such, they do not get searched or have their luggage searched. As to the US allowing it, they are under diplomatic immunity, pretty much the same as the US Secret Service that travel abroad with the Presedential security detail. After all, if we forbid foreign diplomats armed protection, they could do the same with us.
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Old July 15, 2010, 05:23 PM   #27
Hkmp5sd
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It seems there is a little more to it than just granting diplomatic immunity. I remember this from several years ago.


Quote:
THE bodyguards of Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, are under investigation by American officials for allegedly illegally importing and possessing sub-machineguns used to protect him.

The inquiry by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is embarrassing for Mr Annan because last year he launched a campaign against the proliferation of small arms, saying: "There is no single tool of conflict so widespread."

The Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machineguns are said to be particularly lethal at short range. They are commonly used by armed police in Britain and around the world.

An official of the ATF told the Washington Times that permission for Mr Annan's 20 bodyguards, who work in shifts, to import or use the guns had not been granted and that they were strictly controlled weapons.

Mr Annan's support for gun control measures around the world made him distinctly unpopular with America's National Rifle Association and other powerful supporters of the right to bear arms, including the White House.

The UN denied any wrongdoing yesterday. The appropriate permissions had been obtained before the guns were taken into America, a spokesman said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...s-inquiry.html
Quote:

Feds Pressure Annan To Dump Machine Guns

Stewart Stogel

Monday, Aug. 11, 2003

UNITED NATIONS -- Under pressure from the Bush administration, the United Nations security department has decided to move a stache of controversial firearms out of the world body's New York City headquarters.
The MP-5 sub-machine guns made by Heckler and Koch of Germany, are to be moved to U.N. peace keeping operations overseas, according to State Dept. sources.

As first reported in The Washington Times (February 2002), the UN originally purchased the highly restricted weapons for the personal protection of Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his travels around the New York-Metropolitan area.

The guns were often plainly visible in the support van of Annan's motorcade as it moved throughout the concrete canyons of Gotham.

It was unclear why the Annan bodyguards needed such high powered weapons, say sources within the State Dept's. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS).

Under a U.S. agreement with the United Nations, DSS bears the ultimate responsibility for Annan's protection within the borders of the United States.

<snip>

Accommodation

State Dept. sources tell NewsMax that ATF and the U.N. never reached an accommodation which would have allowed the rifles back on the streets of New York. In fact, the sources explained that ATF told the U.N. should the guns venture outside its mid-town Manhattan headquarters, it ran the risk of having them seized.


Firearms are not covered under the provisions of diplomatic immunity, says the State Dept.


Faced with a ban on the use of the firearms outside the U.N. and the possibility of an embarrassing confrontation, the world body and the U.S. agreed on a transfer of the rifles outside the country.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/...0/111956.shtml
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Old July 16, 2010, 12:05 PM   #28
sousana
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Whatever comes into the country in another country's diplomatic pouch is unknown, as these are not searched by any country, period. This is how intelligence services of country's got weapons into foreign countrys, through the diplomatic pouch. And should they be issued to diplomatic personel, the most we, as a country can do is eject them from this country.
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Old July 16, 2010, 12:14 PM   #29
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That's not a relevant issue. The UN is not a sovereign entity, and as such its employees are not automatically recognized under the diplomatic protections we offer to actual diplomatic personnel from other countries, except insofar as they obtain diplomatic assignments from their own countries.
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Old July 16, 2010, 05:01 PM   #30
Hkmp5sd
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Quote:
That's not a relevant issue.

Please note the relevant line:

Quote:
Firearms are not covered under the provisions of diplomatic immunity, says the State Dept.
I don't think it is "diplomatic immunity" that allows bodyguards for foreign diplomats to carry firearms. I believe there are written agreements negotiated with the State Department between the US and the host nation that allows them. Sercret service agents do not carry diplomatic passports and do not have diplomatic immunity. They are visiting law enforcement agents.

I remember reading of DEA agents in South America that were not allowed to carry firearms in some countries. If all it took was granting them diplomatic immunity, they would have been toting guns.
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