Published on: 11/18/2022 – 12:18 pm Modified on: 11/18/2022 – 6:35 pm
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is “immune” in a civil lawsuit over the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the US government said in a court document filed in court on Thursday (November 17). However, a recommendation is not binding on the court.
Prince bin Salman was appointed prime minister by royal decree at the end of September, prompting speculation that he wanted to avoid legal risks arising from complaints filed in foreign courts, including a civil lawsuit brought in the United States by Hatice Cengiz, the Turkish fiancee, journalist was murdered in Istanbul.
“A License to Kill”
The latter responded by posting a series of angry messages on Twitter: “Jamal died a second time today,” she wrote.
Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of the NGO Amnesty International, echoed the same tone, calling the US government’s recommendation a “profound betrayal”.
The US government recommendation, filed on Thursday, gave the Saudi leader “a license to kill,” said Khalid al-Jabri, the son of Saad al-Jabri, a former Saudi spy who accused the prince of sending him an assassin team Canada.
The murder four years ago Jamal Khashoggi, a close friend of Saudi power and later critic in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul (Turkey) had temporarily made the prince a pariah in the West. His lawyers had previously argued that Mr bin Salman “sits at the head of Saudi Arabia’s government” and should therefore enjoy the immunities that US courts grant to heads of state and other senior foreign leaders. The prince, who has been the de facto ruler of the kingdom for several years, served as deputy prime minister and defense minister during the reign of his father, King Salman.
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After a relative hiatus following the journalist’s assassination, he returned to the international scene this year, thanks in particular to the American President, who traveled to Saudi Arabia in July, when he previously vowed to make the kingdom a “pariah”.
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In the Columbia civil lawsuit initiated by Ms. Cengiz and DAWN, plaintiffs allege that Mohammed bin Salman and more than 20 co-defendants conspired to and deliberately abducted, bound, drugged, tortured and murdered columnist Jamal Khashoggi. for the American newspaper Washington Post.
They are demanding financial compensation and want to prove that the murder was ordered by “the top of the Saudi power hierarchy”.
(With AFP)
American reaction
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday, November 18, that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s judicial immunity had “nothing to do” with Washington-Riyadh relations .
“It has absolutely nothing to do with bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia, which, as you know, are strained at the moment,” Kirby told reporters, stressing that it had “neither to do with the merits in the matter.” of the case”.