U.S. moves to shield Saudi crown prince from lawsuit
Biden administration supports his claim of legal immunity in 2018 Khashoggi slaying.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration says Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s high office should shield him from a lawsuit over his alleged role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, marking a turnaround from President Biden’s campaign-trail denunciations of the prince over the brutal slaying.
The administration spoke in support of a claim of legal immunity by the prince — Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, who recently took the title of prime minister — against a suit brought by the fiancee of the late Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group the Washington Post columnist founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.
“Jamal died again today,” Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, tweeted after the U.S. filing late Thursday in her lawsuit.
The U.S. government’s assertion of immunity for the crown prince, known as MBS, is nonbinding, and a judge will decide whether to grant immunity. But it angered activists and risked blowback from Democratic lawmakers. The move came as Saudi Arabia has stepped up imprisonment and other retaliation against peaceful critics at home and abroad and has cut oil production, a move seen as undercutting efforts by the U.S. and its allies to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine.
The State Department on Thursday called the administration’s move to shield the prince from U.S. courts in Khashoggi’s 2018 killing “purely a legal determination,” citing what it described as long-standing precedent. Despite its recommendation, the State Department said in its filing late Thursday that it “takes no view on the merits of the present suit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi.”
Saudi security agents killed Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. They are believed to have dismembered him, though his remains were never found. The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Mohammed approved the killing of the journalist, who had written of the prince’s harsh ways of silencing those he considered rivals or critics.
The Biden administration statement Thursday noted visa restrictions and other penalties it has meted out to lower-ranking Saudi officials over Khashoggi’s slaying.
“From the earliest days of this Administration, the United States Government has expressed its grave concerns regarding Saudi agents’ responsibility for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder,” the State Department said. The statement did not mention the crown prince’s alleged role.
As a presidential candidate, Biden vowed to make a “pariah” of Saudi rulers over Khashoggi’s slaying.
“I think it was a flat-out murder,” he said in a 2019 CNN town hall. “And I think we should have nailed it as that. I publicly said at the time we should treat it that way, and there should be consequences relating to how we deal with those — that power.”
But as president, Biden has sought to ease tensions with Saudi Arabia, including bumping fists with the crown prince on a July trip to the kingdom, as the U.S. works to persuade it to undo cuts in oil production.
Cengiz and Democracy for the Arab World Now sued the prince, his top aides and others in Washington federal court over their alleged roles in Khashoggi’s death. Saudi Arabia says the prince had no direct role.
“It’s beyond ironic that President Biden has singlehandedly assured MBS can escape accountability when it was President Biden who promised the American people he would do everything to hold him accountable,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the head of Democracy for the Arab World Now, said in a statement.
Biden in February 2021 ruled out the U.S. government imposing punishment on the crown prince in the killing. Biden, speaking after he authorized release of a declassified version of the intelligence community’s findings on the prince’s role, argued at the time that there was no precedent for the U.S. to move against the leader of a strategic partner.
The U.S. military long has safeguarded Saudi Arabia from external enemies in exchange for the kingdom keeping global oil markets afloat.
“It’s impossible to read the Biden administration’s move today as anything more than a capitulation to Saudi pressure tactics, including slashing oil output to twist our arms to recognize MBS’ fake immunity ploy,” Whitson said.
A federal judge in Washington had given the U.S. government until midnight Thursday to express an opinion on the claim by the crown prince’s lawyers that his official standing rendered him legally immune in the case. The Biden administration also had the option of not stating an opinion.