The Biden administration has until Aug. 1 to say whether it believes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman should be granted immunity from a civil suit filed against him in the United States by Khadija Genghis, the fiancee of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. who was murdered in 2018. . Cengiz and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a human rights organization founded by Khashoggi before his death, filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the crown prince and two dozen co-defendants. The suit alleges Khashoggi was tortured, murdered and dismembered at the behest of the crown prince, who is often referred to by the initials MBS. The successor and two of the co-defendants have filed motions to dismiss Cengiz’s lawsuit, arguing that the court lacks both subject matter and personal jurisdiction. The crown prince has previously denied ordering Khashoggi’s murder, and Saudi officials have blamed “rogue agents” for the journalist’s death. The CIA concluded in 2018 that Mohammed had ordered Khashoggi’s assassination, contrary to Saudi Arabia’s insistence that the crown prince had no prior knowledge of the plot. U.S. District Court Judge John Bates said in an order Friday that the U.S. government can file a statement of interest regarding, among other things, “the applicability of head of state immunity to this case.” The Biden administration may also say it will not make such a statement. If the US declares its interest, Mohammed and the other defendants will have until Aug. 16 to respond, Bates ruled. Mohammed’s lawyers argued that in the US, the crown prince enjoys sovereign immunity from civil claims. Mohammed’s father, King Salman, is the ruler of Saudi Arabia, although the crown prince is widely seen as the kingdom’s day-to-day leader. The crown prince “is immune not only from his immediate family relationship to the king, but also from his own ‘high office,’” Mohammed’s lawyers argued in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed last year. Lawyers for Cengiz and DAWN countered that the courts had previously rejected claims that the “de facto” leadership, by virtue of being heir apparent, provides immunity. The State Department usually consults with other US government agencies before issuing an immunity recommendation to the Justice Department, whose formal request is usually binding on a federal court. A decision can come quickly, as for a head of state, or take months or years, depending on the circumstances and complexity of a case, legal analysts say. “It would be wrong both as a matter of law and as a matter of policy for the court to grant immunity to MBS, effectively ensuring impunity for this grotesque crime,” Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director, said in a text message. The federal judge’s order comes just before President Biden is scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia later this month for the first time in his presidency, a trip that has even worried some Democrats and that has prompted accusations that Biden has reneged on the promise of making Saudi Arabia a “pariah” after Khashoggi’s murder. On October 2, 2018, Saudi agents killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. What has happened next? (Video: Joyce Lee, Thomas LeGro, Dalton Bennett, John Parks/The Washington Post) The Saudi Embassy highlighted the upcoming visit as one that would “strengthen the historic and strategic partnership between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America, as both countries aim to deepen and strengthen existing areas of cooperation and to lay the foundations for the future of this strategic partnership.” Khashoggi was killed on October 2, 2018, after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents that would allow him to marry Genghis. In the months leading up to that visit, he had been writing columns for the Washington Post that were highly critical of the crown prince, who effectively rules Saudi Arabia and has carried out a harsh crackdown on opponents and dissidents. The death and dismemberment of the journalist was first revealed by the government of Turkey. The assassination sparked a wave of international revulsion and calls for the ouster of the Saudi leadership. A separate attempt to prosecute Khashoggi’s murder in Turkey recently ended after the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ended the trial of suspected members of the Saudi Arabian team that killed the journalist at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. The suspects, who were all in Saudi Arabia, were being tried in absentia. Turkey’s suspension of the trial in April coincided with an effort by Erdogan’s government to repair relations with the kingdom that had been strained since Khashoggi’s murder. “We will seek justice in the United States,” Cengiz said at the time, referring to the Turkish decision and her US lawsuit. Spencer S. Hsu and Nick Miroff contributed to this report.
