The prince’s death squad
Among thousands of princes, one prince has muscled his way to the top of the Saudi power structure, and if the ascent of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has revealed anything, it’s that the future king’s campaign to violently suppress domestic enemies is global in reach.
As confirmed by the CIA, the crown prince ordered the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. A regular contributor to The Washington Post, Khashoggi was critical of MBS’s leadership. In response, the young prince had the prominent journalist murdered and taken apart with a bone saw in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey. A U.N. investigator called it a “premeditated execution” and “an international crime.”
In a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. on Aug. 6, former Saudi counterterrorism expert Saad Aljabri alleged that two weeks after the murder of Khashoggi, MBS sent members of the same “private death squad” to attempt his assassination in Canada. Fifteen Saudi nationals were turned away at the Ottawa International Airport before they could carry out their grisly mission.
The United States should quickly put an end to any assumption that such flagrant acts of criminality will be accepted. America has a longstanding commitment to Saudi Arabia’s security, but this behavior must not be sanctioned. Allowing an autocrat to get away with murder in Istanbul, and then attempted murder in North America, sets an unacceptable precedent.
As Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, “We don’t want to give a green light to others that they can go down this road.” If Mr. Graham were to follow through on this desire, he would work on legislation ensuring that if the Saudis, America’s top arms purchaser, do not adhere to international standards of law and decency, they will be cut off from buying war material.
MBS’s extrajudicial killings and his brazen disregard for international norms has had little effect on his position in the House of Saud; however, it’s both right and necessary that the United States be a check on his power abroad and make clear that this menacing behavior has no place in the liberal world order.
Neither should America sanction the suppression of Saudi civil society and the kingdom’s imprisonment of citizens who express themselves. Who suffers in Saudi Arabia? Opposition groups, religious minorities, women’s rights activists, journalists and dissidents — all denied freedom of speech, assembly and, in some cases, movement. These are the people whom America should be supporting.
Instead we are the No. 1 ally of one of the world’s most-repressive regimes, a country that beheaded 180 people last year, breaking its own record. And none of this even begins to deal with the kingdom’s exportation of Wahhabi extremism and its funding of terrorism.
Saudi Arabia is a highly secretive monarchy in which the king’s will is absolute. As Mr. Aljabri is unlikely to find justice and accountability in his home country, he hopes to find it in the U.S. legal system. His suit is based on the Torture Victim Protection Act, which bans extrajudicial killing, and the Alien Tort Statute, which allows non-U.S. citizens to sue in U.S. courts for acts committed in violation of international law.
Perhaps justice won for Mr. Aljabri will also be a small shred of justice for the family of Jamal Khashoggi.