U.S. urges legal immunity for Saudi prince in lawsuit

The Biden administration says Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s high office should shield him from a lawsuit over his role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, marking a turnaround from President Biden’s passionate campaign trail denunciations of the prince over the brutal slaying.

The administration spoke out in support of a claim of legal immunity from Prince Mohammed — Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, who also recently took the title of prime minister — against a suit brought by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group Khashoggi founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.

“Jamal died again today,” Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, tweeted after the U.S. filing late Thursday in her lawsuit.

The U.S. government’s finding of immunity for the Prince Mohammed, sometimes known as MBS, is non-binding, and a judge will ultimately decide whether to grant immunity. But it angered rights activists and risked blowback from lawmakers. The U.S 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 decision to shield the Saudi crown prince from U.S. courts in Khashoggi’s 2018 killing “purely a legal determination.” It cited what it called long-standing precedent.

Despite its recommendation to the court, 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 officials killed Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. They are believed to have dismembered him, although his remains have never been found. The U.S. intelligence community concluded Saudi Arabia’s crown prince had approved the killing of the widely known and respected journalist, who had written critically of Prince Mohammed’s harsh ways of silencing of those he considered rivals or critics.

Biden as a Democratic presidential candidate vowed to make a “pariah” out of Saudi rulers over the 2018 killing of Khashoggi.

Khashoggi’s fiancée and DAWN sued the crown prince, his top aides and others in Washington federal court over their alleged roles in Khashoggi’s killing. Saudi Arabia says the prince had no direct role in the slaying.

Sovereign immunity holds that states and their officials are protected from some legal proceedings in other foreign states’ domestic courts. Upholding the concept helps ensure that American leaders in turn don’t have to worry about being hauled into foreign courts, the State Department said.