Posted on 11/18/2022 4:48:17 AM PST by John W
The Biden administration told a U.S. court that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s status as a sitting head of government shields him from a civil lawsuit brought by the fiancée of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Mr. Khashoggi, a former royal insider who criticized Prince Mohammed’s policies in Washington Post columns, was killed in 2018 and his body dismembered by Saudi agents during a visit to the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate where he was seeking papers needed to marry Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish citizen.
In a filing Thursday, the State Department said “common law principles of immunity” informed its determination of Prince Mohammed’s status, but that “does not reflect a judgment on the underlying conduct at issue in the litigation.”
The court is expected to take up the issue in a hearing next month. Getting Ms. Cengiz’s lawsuit dismissed would help Saudi Arabia move past an episode that drove a wedge between Prince Mohammed and Western allies, particularly the U.S.
Supporters of Mr. Khashoggi criticized the court filing as a betrayal and Ms. Cengiz said the administration’s decision was unexpected. “We thought maybe there would be a light to justice from USA,” she tweeted. “Jamal died again today.”
“It’s beyond ironic that President Biden has 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,” Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Arab World Now, said using Prince Mohammed’s initials. “Not even the Trump administration did this.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apple.news ...
Pretty much all heads of states do.
I’m thinking the better argument would be that a Turkish citizen has no standing to file suit in a U.S. court over the death of a Saudi citizen in Turkey at the hands of the Saudi government.
Pretty much what I came here to say.
Because of the fractious nature of politics, it is not a good idea to allow civilian courts to “force” the leader of a country to testify. Virtually every policy, every decision and every excuse under the sun would be used to force leaders to testify. This would be used in an attempt to embarrass, harass or hobble a government or a party. We see how this can play out in the recent attempts by various courts to force Trump to do this or that. It doesn’t matter what the leader says, the media will pick up on some aspect of it to pursue their agenda.
If this is allowed in one case, it will be used to excess, like when a two-year-old learns to say “no.”
Damn Saudis! We’ll fix ‘em like the last time they messed with us. Call up the world policeman, let’s go bomb the bejeebers out of Afghanistan over this.
I honestly do not care, not even a little.
Wake me up when other countries start asking about ‘Clinton Coincidences’
Yeah. What you said!
Clearly, Biden is planning to claim the same for himself, and wants to prove it’s universal.
So where’s the outrage directed at Joe? Trump was blamed for not doing enough about Khashoggi‘s death.
When they said America had less than a month of diesel reserves left something like this was almost guaranteed.
I don’t care about Jamal Kashoggi’s death and can’t be made to care that a foreign government executed a spy working for an adversary just because that foreign spy had a green card and occasionally had some material printed in the Washington Post.
The Saudis are a brutal government and have been for a hundred years. Life in the desert is brutal. Brutal governments commit atrocities all the time and we look the other way all the time, just like the other governments bite their tongues about our government’s drone strikes on civilians.
Exactly how does killing one terrorist differ from killing another terrorist?
PS …‘Please send oil’
Someone please explain how the US courts have any jurisdiction in this case????
PS …‘Please send oil’…
The Biden administration told a U.S. court that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s status as a sitting head of government shields him from a civil lawsuit brought by the fiancée of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi
So many big words, just say: “The check cleared”
This is funny only so far as the pinkos harped on Trump so bad about it, and now, the Josef Stolen administration does this.
So Washington Post will write another 100 columns now about him?
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