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 ...
“a foreign government executed a spy working for an adversary”
That is well put.
It is even more significant that the adversary in question, the Muslim Brotherhood, has a history of terrorist attacks and assassinations of political figures. They are existentially hostile to the Saudi regime.
“heads of states”
I really like the sound of that phrase.
For some reason it fits in well with a sentence with “guillotines” in it.
;-)
“I still can[t get my mind around why everyone is so upset that this Muslim Brotherhood mole got whacked. Who freakin cares.”
Because he was an alleged “journalist” don’t you know. It’s the MSM making all the noise. They consider him to have been one of their ilk.
As to immunity for a Head of State, that is what Joe Biden wants for himself so that he won’t end up in the Clink where he and his crime syndicate family belong. And that includes Dr. Jill Biden too. She’s in on the steal.
This is immunity in a civil case, not a criminal one. But the US Courts have no business hearing a case about the Saudi Government killing a Saudi Citizen, on Saudi soil (embassy), in Turkey. Remember the sixteen year old American Citizen that Obama killed, in Yemen, with a missile strike? Should the Saudi Courts have let his family sue Obama in Saudi Arabia?
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