Biden gives immunity to Saudi Arabia's MBS despite promise to hold him accountable for journalist's death
The Biden admin said Thursday that MBS’ position as a high-status official 'allows immunity' to a lawsuit filed by Khashoggi’s fiancée and the group founded by the journalist, Democracy for the Arab World Now.
U.S. President Joe Biden has broken his promise to hold Saudi Arabian leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accountable for the death of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi, offering him protection from a lawsuit relating to the case on Thursday.
The Biden admin said Thursday that MBS’ position as a high-status official “allows immunity” to a lawsuit filed by Khashoggi's fiancée and the group founded by the journalist, Democracy for the Arab World Now.
“The State Department recognizes and allows the immunity of Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman as a sitting head of government of a foreign state,” stated Richard C. Visek, Acting Legal Adviser, United States Department of State.
“Under common law principles of immunity articulated by the Executive Branch in the exercise of its Constitutional authority over foreign affairs and informed by customary international law, Prime Minister bin Salman as a sitting head of government is immune while in office from the jurisdiction of the United States District Court in this suit,” he wrote. “In making this immunity determination, the Department of State takes no view on the merits of the present suit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi.”
BREAKING: Biden administration suggests immunity for MBS in DAWN & Cengiz lawsuit for murder of #JamalKhashoggi:
— Sarah Leah Whitson (@sarahleah1) November 18, 2022
breaking promise for accountability, Biden guarantees MBS impunity. pic.twitter.com/72n3dV53Gx
In 2019, Biden promised to “make [Saudi Arabia] pay the price and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are” amid a U.S. intelligence report, which assessed that Mohammed bin Salman personally “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”
The issue became a subject of friction between Biden and the Saudi Arabian government this summer when he visited the oil-rich state to ask them to increase oil production. Biden claimed at the time that he “raised” Khashoggi death “at the top of the meeting, making it clear what I thought of it at the time and what I think of it now.”
“And it was exactly — I was straightforward and direct in discussing it,” he continued. “I made my view crystal clear. I said very straightforwardly: For an American President to be silent on an issue of human rights, is this consistent with — inconsistent with who we are and who I am? I’ll always stand up for our values.”
Saudi Arabian officials pushed back on the claim, with Saudi Minister of State Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir stating that he never heard Biden state these remarks when he sat in with MBS and Biden during their meeting.
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