An American spy whose wife sparked an international row by killing a British teenager in a traffic accident is not a National Security Agency employee, according to the agency.
Anne Sacoolas, 42, who is married to Jonathan Sacoolas, 43, was stationed in the United Kingdom at the time of the August accident. “Jonathan Sacoolas is not an employee at NSA,” spokesman Chris Augustine told the Washington Examiner. “He does not work here.”
The NSA typically does not verify employment, but made the unusual move to disavow Sacoolas amid a transatlantic dust-up over the spy’s wife. “The man works for an American spy agency,” an intelligence source said, without naming the agency.
Anne Sacoolas was driving her Volvo XC90 SUV in Northamptonshire on Aug. 27 when she hit local resident Harry Dunn, 19, who was knocked off his motorcycle, British police said. Sacoolas ploughed head-on into Dunn, who died at a local hospital. Sacoolas quickly left the U.K., claiming diplomatic immunity based on being married to Jonathan Sacoolas, an American civilian who worked at the Royal Air Force Croughton base.
Outraged that the American woman did not remain in the U.K. to face authorities, the British press speculated that Anne Sacoolas fled the country because her husband was being given special protection because of his intelligence role. “He was working at Croughton, which is a communications base, so he was working with intelligence which is, I guess, why it has been handled in the way that it has,” Radd Seiger, a lawyer for the dead boy’s parents, told a British newspaper.
Jonathan Sacoolas had been widely described as an NSA official working signals intelligence at the Croughton base, where he lived with his family. “Sacoolas works as an NSA technical officer at the communications interceptions post at RAF Croughton,” wrote Craig Murray, a former British diplomat, on his website. “His role is support to the interception of communications from British citizens.”
The NSA’s disavowal leaves unanswered the question of the intelligence agency for which Jonathan Sacoolas works. “Look at other agencies named in your coverage,” the intelligence source said. On Wednesday, the Washington Examiner reported that the couple has lived “at various addresses in northern Virginia close to CIA headquarters at Langley.”
The CIA did not respond to questions from the Washington Examiner.
