The Biden administration has declared that the high office held by Saudi Arabia's crown prince should shield him from lawsuits for his role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The administration said the prince's official standing should give him immunity in the lawsuit filed by the fiancee of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group he founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.
And despite backing up the crown prince in his bid to block the lawsuit against him, the State Department “takes no view on the merits of the present suit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” the administration's court filing late Thursday said. “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. Its statement did not mention the crown prince's own alleged role.
But Biden as president has sought to ease tensions with the kingdom, including bumping fists with Prince Mohammed on a July trip to the kingdom, as the U.S. works to persuade Saudi Arabia to undo a series of cuts in oil production. Biden in February 2021 had ruled out the U.S. government imposing punishment on Prince Mohammed himself in the killing of Khashoggi, a resident of the Washington area. Biden, speaking after he authorized release of a declassified version of the intelligence community's findings on Prince Mohammed's role in the killing, argued at the time there was no precedent for the U.S. to move against the leader of a strategic partner.
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 Prince Mohammed's high official standing renders him legally immune in the case.Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, holds that states and their officials are protected from some legal proceedings in other foreign states' domestic courts.
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