US court dismisses suit against Saudi ruler in Khashoggi killing

The lawsuit filed on behalf of Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, named Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the most prominent defendant. Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents while visiting Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to get documents for his upcoming wedding.
WASHINGTON — A U.S. federal court said in a filing on Tuesday that it was dismissing a lawsuit against the crown prince of Saudi Arabia over the murder of a Saudi columnist who lived in Virginia, after the State Department’s determination that the prince has immunity as a head of state or government.
Advertisement
This September, Crown Prince Mohammed’s father, King Salman, made the prince the prime minister of Saudi Arabia. The move formalized his role as ruler of the kingdom, though the king remains the head of state.
Some U.S. officials and analysts said the king appeared to make the decision to ensure that the prince had immunity in the case. King Salman made the announcement six days before an October deadline set by the court for the U.S. government to advise whether Crown Prince Mohammed had immunity. Soon after he received his new title, the prince told the court he had immunity based on legal precedent.
The State Department asked the court for an extension to make a legal determination, and then it filed a statement with the Justice Department on Nov. 17 that said Crown Prince Mohammed should be “immune while in office.”
The letter said the State Department was not taking a position on the suit itself and repeated “its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder” of Khashoggi.
In its 25-page filing on Tuesday, the court said: “Despite the court’s uneasiness, then, with both the circumstances of bin Salman’s appointment and the credible allegations of his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, the United States has informed the court that he is immune, and bin Salman is therefore ‘entitled to head of state immunity … while he remains in office.’”
Advertisement
Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, an advocacy group that filed the lawsuit on behalf of Cengiz, wrote on Twitter that the court’s decision was “sad news for accountability.” She said that the group was consulting with lawyers on the next steps and that “our struggle for justice continues.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.