Washington: The administration of US President Joe Biden revealed that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has legal immunity from prosecution, in connection with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his country’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
The US administration submitted a declaration of sovereign immunity to a federal court in Washington that is considering the lawsuit filed by Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz aka Khadija Genghis, and the Democracy Organization for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a human rights organization founded by Jamal Khashoggi.
The Biden administration had said earlier that Khashoggi was killed at the direction of the Saudi crown prince.
In a filing released late on Thursday night, the Biden administration said the crown prince’s recent promotion to the role of prime minister meant that he was “the sitting head of government and, accordingly, immune” from the lawsuit.
“The United States government has expressed grave concerns regarding Jamal Khashoggi’s horrific killing and has raised these concerns publicly and with the most senior levels of the Saudi government,” the Department of Justice said in its filing, adding that the US had also imposed financial sanctions and visa restrictions related to the murder.
“However, the doctrine of head of state immunity is well established in customary international law and has been consistently recognized in longstanding executive branch practice as a status-based determination that does not reflect a judgment on the underlying conduct at issue in the litigation,” it said.
“Jamal died again today,” Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s ex-fiancée, said on Twitter minutes after the news was published.
She later added, “We thought maybe there would be a light of justice from the USA, but then again, money came first. This is a world that Jamal doesn’t know and I don’t!”
Biden administration’s decision sparks controversy on Twitter:
On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi was killed inside his country’s consulate in Istanbul, and the case has become one of the most prominent and most discussed on the international agenda since then.
It is noteworthy that the Saudi crown prince has previously repeatedly denied his involvement in the incident.
Prince Mohammed was appointed crown prince by King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in 2017. He was appointed as prime minister in September 2022.
