WASHINGTON (AP) — A US federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the killing of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, bowing to the Biden administration’s insistence that the prince was legally immune in the case.
District of Columbia US District Judge John D. Bates heeded the USA government’s motion to shield Prince Mohammed from the lawsuit despite what Bates called credible allegations of his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder.
A team of Saudi mercenaries killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, had written critically of the harsh ways of Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler.
The US intelligence community concluded the Saudi crown prince ordered the operation against Khashoggi.
The killing opened a rift between the Biden administration and Saudi Arabia that the administration has tried in recent months to close, as the USA unsuccessfully urged the kingdom to undo oil production cuts in a global market racked by the Ukraine proxy war.
Khashoggi had entered the Saudi consulate to obtain documents needed for his upcoming marriage. His fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who had waited unknowingly outside the consulate as he was killed, and a rights group founded by Khashoggi before he died brought the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also named two top aides of the prince as accomplices.
The Biden administration, invited but not ordered by the judge to offer an opinion on the matter, declared last month that Prince Mohammed’s standing as Saudi Arabia’s prime minister gave him sovereign immunity from the U.S. lawsuit.
Saudi Arabia’s king, Salman, had named Prince Mohammed, his son, as prime minister weeks earlier. It was a temporary exemption from the kingdom’s governing code, which makes the king prime minister.
Khashoggi’s fiancee and his rights group argued the move was a maneuver to shield the prince from the USA court system.
The US government’s finding that Prince Mohammed was immune left the US judge no choice but to dismiss the prince as a plaintiff. He also dismissed the two other Saudi plaintiffs, saying the U.S. court lacked jurisdiction over them.
The Biden administration argued longstanding legal precedent on immunity for heads of government from other nations’ courts, in some circumstances, demanded that the prince be shielded as prime minister, regardless of the prince only recently obtaining the title.
The Biden administration already had spared Prince Mohammed from government penalties in the case, again citing sovereign immunity.
Rights groups and Saudi exiles argued that sparing Prince Mohammed from accountability in Khashoggi’s killing would give the crown prince and other authoritarian rulers around the world a green light for future abuses.
AP / ABC Flash Point US Democracy News 2022.
American self interest as opposed to morality and righteousness– US government – “dont upset Saudi Arabia or China & Russia will be more influential there than ourselves”.
Chopping up a US resident gets a “pass-mark ” when it suites –reminds me of the USS Liberty getting blown up by Zionists-34 Americans killed -170+ wounded .
As always these thugs do not care about what the world thinks, as long as their own interest get the attention. Khashoggi was the brother of (Adnan born in Mecca) one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers in the early 80’s.
His yacht, the Nabila, was the largest in the world at the time and was used in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. After Khashoggi ran into financial problems he sold the yacht to the Sultan of Brunei, who in turn sold it for US$29 million to Donald Trump, who sold it for US$20 million to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal as part of a deal to keep his Taj Mahal casino out of bankruptcy. Khashoggi gained influence with U.S. President Richard Nixon by donating US$200 million to his 1972 political campaign, through a friendly bank circumventing existing laws… Read more »