The Biden administration decided on Thursday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is exempt from legal action after the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, The Hill reported.
According to the State Department, the Saudi crown prince was constitutionally exempt from such a lawsuit since he is the current head of state of a foreign country.
The Department of State said that it reiterates its emphatic condemnation of the terrible murder of Jamal Khashoggi while expressing no opinion on the merits of the current lawsuit in making this immunity judgment.
In 2018, the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was the scene of Khashoggi’s murder. Later, the CIA came to the conclusion that Prince Mohammed was responsible for the journalist’s slaying in the United States.
In 2020, Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of Khashoggi, filed a lawsuit against Prince Mohammed in a U.S. court. But last month, a federal court in Washington, D.C., requested the administration to offer its opinion by this Thursday.
President Biden’s pledge to declare the Saudi prince a “pariah” for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi has been broken by the Biden administration’s decision to uphold immunity.
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