The Biden administration decided last Thursday that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has immunity from a lawsuit over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in October 2018 by Saudi agents in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, an operation that U.S. intelligence claimed was ordered by Prince Mohammed. The latter has been the kingdom’s de-facto ruler since 2017.
“Jamal died again today,” Khashoggi’s ex-fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, said on Twitter shortly after the news became public. She added later, “We thought maybe there would be a light to justice from #USA But again, money came first.”
In an interview with the Guardian in 2020, Cengiz alleged that the kingdom is being “encouraged to do whatever it wants.”
According to Reuters, the Saudi government communications office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday and Friday.
“This is a legal determination made by the State Department under longstanding and well-established principles of customary international law,” a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said in a statement. “It has nothing to do with the merits of the case.”
The spokesperson referred further questions to the state and justice departments.
In a document filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, justice department attorneys wrote that “the doctrine of head of state immunity is well established in customary international law.”
They added that the Biden Administration had “determined that defendant bin Salman, as the sitting head of a foreign government, enjoys head of state immunity from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts as a result of that office.”
In September, Saudi King Salman named Prince Mohammed prime minister in a royal decree, which a Saudi official said was in line with responsibilities that the crown prince was already exercising.
“The Royal Order leaves no doubt that the Crown Prince is entitled to status-based immunity,” said the prince’s lawyers in an October 3 petition requesting a federal district court in Washington to dismiss the case. They also cited other instances where the United States has recognized immunity for a foreign head of state.
Biden was criticized for fist-bumping the crown prince on a visit to Saudi Arabia in July to discuss energy and security issues. The White House said Biden told Prince Mohammed that he considered him responsible for Khashoggi’s murder.
The prince has denied ordering Khashoggi’s killing but acknowledged later that it took place “under my watch.”
Some analysts have suggested that the latest decision reflects Biden’s ongoing weakness in his dealings with the kingdom.
“Deciding to grant sovereign immunity to MbS will send a very clear signal to him: that he should continue asserting Saudi Arabia’s nationalist interests without compromise, even when these go directly against core interests of the United States,” said Cinzia Bianco, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“It’s beyond ironic that President Biden had single-handedly assured MBS can escape accountability when it was President Biden who promised the American people, he would do everything to hold him accountable. Not even the Trump administration did this,” Sarah Lee Whitson, a spokeswoman for Democracy for the Arab World Now, said in a statement.
