WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration declared Thursday that the high office of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia should shield him from lawsuits for his role in the murder of a US-based journalist, a reversal of Joe Biden’s impassioned charges against Prince Mohammed during his campaign. bin Salman about the brutal murder.
The government said the prince’s official status should grant him immunity in the lawsuit brought by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the human rights organization he founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.
The request is not binding and a judge will ultimately decide whether to grant immunity. But it will no doubt draw the wrath of human rights activists and many US lawmakers as Saudi Arabia has stepped up imprisonment and other retaliatory measures against peaceful critics at home and abroad and slashed oil production, a move seen as undermining efforts. of the US and its allies. to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine.
The State Department on Thursday called the government’s decision to try to protect the Saudi crown prince from US courts in Khashoggi’s murder “purely a legal provision”.
The State Department cited what it said was a longstanding precedent. Despite its recommendation to the court, the State Department said in its filing late Thursday, “it takes no position on the merits of the current trial and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi.”
Saudi officials killed Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. They allegedly chopped him up, although his remains were never found. US intelligence officials concluded that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia had authorized the assassination of the widely known and respected journalist, who had written critically of Prince Mohammed’s harsh ways of silencing those he considered rivals or critics.
The Biden administration’s statement on Thursday noted visa restrictions and other punishments it had imposed on lower-ranking Saudi officials at the death.
“From the beginning of this administration, the United States government has expressed serious concerns about the responsibility of Saudi agents for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” the State Department said. The statement did not mention the alleged role of the crown prince himself.
Biden vowed as a candidate to make a “pariah” of Saudi rulers over the 2018 murder of Khashoggi.
“I think it was outright murder,” Biden said at a CNN town hall in 2019, running for office. “And I think we should have done it that way. I said publicly at the time that we should treat it that way and there should be consequences for how we handle it – that power.”
But as president, Biden has tried to ease tensions with the kingdom, including fist bumping with Prince Mohammed on a July trip to the kingdom, as the US tries to persuade Saudi Arabia to implement a series of cuts to oil production. to undo.
Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, and DAWN sued the Crown Prince, his top aides and others in Washington federal court over their alleged role in Khashoggi’s murder. Saudi Arabia says the prince had no direct role in the murder.
“It is more than ironic that President Biden single-handedly assured that MBS can escape responsibility when it was President Biden who promised the American people that he would do everything in his power to hold him accountable,” said the head of the United States. DAWN, Sarah Leah Whitson, in a statement. abbreviation of the prince.
In February 2021, Biden had ruled out that the US government would personally punish Prince Mohammed for the murder of Khashoggi, a resident of the Washington area. Biden, speaking after authorizing the release of a declassified version of the intelligence community’s findings on Prince Mohammed’s role in the assassination, argued at the time that there was no precedent for the US to take action against the leader of a strategic partner.
The US military has long protected Saudi Arabia from external enemies in exchange for Saudi Arabia propelling global oil markets.
“It is impossible to read the Biden administration’s move today as anything more than a capitulation to Saudi pressure tactics, including slashing oil production to twist our arms to spot MBS’ fake immunity trick,” Whitson said.
A federal judge in Washington had given the US government until midnight Thursday to rule on the claim of the crown prince’s lawyers that Prince Mohammed is legally immune from the case because of his high official status.
The Biden administration also had the option of not commenting anyway.
Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, means that states and their officials are protected from certain legal proceedings in the domestic courts of other foreign states.
Maintaining the concept of “sovereign immunity” helps ensure that U.S. leaders, in turn, don’t have to worry about being dragged into foreign courts to file lawsuits in other countries, the State Department said.
Human rights advocates had argued that the Biden administration would encourage Prince Mohammed and other authoritarian leaders around the world to commit more abuses of their rights if it supported the crown prince’s claim that his high office would protect him from prosecution.
Prince Mohammed acts as the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia in place of his elderly father, King Salman. The Saudi king also temporarily handed over his title of prime minister – a title normally held by the Saudi monarch – to Prince Mohammed in September. Critics called it an attempt to bolster Mohammed’s immunity claim.
——
Eric Tucker and Aamer Madhani contributed.
