The Biden administration on Thursday is reportedly shielding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
According to a filing released by the Department of Justice (DOJ), President Joe Biden has told the court that Prince Mohammed should be granted sovereign immunity from the Khashoggi case due to his recent promotion to the role of prime minister.
“The United States government has expressed grave concerns regarding Jamal Khashoggi’s horrific killing and has raised these concerns publicly and with the most senior levels of the Saudi government,” the DOJ said in its filing.
“However, the doctrine of head of state immunity is well established in customary international law and has been consistently recognized in longstanding executive branch practice as a status-based determination that does not reflect a judgment on the underlying conduct at issue in the litigation,” it continued.
Fred Ryan, the Post’s publisher and CEO, said in a statement on Friday that Biden has given Prince Mohammed a “license to kill.”
New statement from Washington Post Publisher Fred Ryan pic.twitter.com/D0Cbt6Cpg2
— Washington Post PR (@WashPostPR) November 18, 2022
“In granting legal immunity to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Biden is failing to uphold America’s most cherished values. He is granting a license to kill to one of the world’s most egregious human-rights abusers who is responsible for the cold-blooded murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist,” Ryan said.
“While legitimate heads of government should be protected against frivolous lawsuits, the Saudis decision to make MBS prime minister was a cynical, calculated effort to manipulate the law and shield him from accountability,” the statement continued.
Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, and American intelligence agencies later concluded that Prince Mohammed ordered the murder, which the crown prince has denied.
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of pro-democracy advocacy group Dawn, issued a scathing rebuke of the administration in the wake of its decision, calling it an “unnecessary, elective action that will serve only to undermine the most important action for accountability for Khashoggi’s heinous murder.”
“It’s beyond ironic that President Biden has single-handedly assured [Mohammed bin Salman] can escape accountability when it was President Biden who promised the American people he would do everything to hold him accountable. Not even the Trump administration did this,” Whitson said.
