President Donald Trump’s administration is currently considering whether to grant legal immunity to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been accused of ordering the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The Washington Post reports that the Saudi government has asked the U.S. State Department to recommend a liability shield for the prince in response to a complaint from a former Saudi counterintelligence leader, Saad Aljabri, who is now living in Canada in exile. This recommendation could cause the prince to be removed as a defendant from other cases in the U.S., including one recently filed that accuses him of ordering the killing of Khashoggi in 2018 and another that accuses him of retaliating against an Al Jazeera news anchor in an attempt to discredit her reporting on Mohammed and the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates.
A source close to Aljabri’s family told the Post that his lawyers received a questionnaire from the State Department asking for their legal views on if the Saudi request should be granted. The Post notes that Aljabri’s family, the State Department, and several American legislators have condemned Saudi Arabia for detaining two of Aljabri’s children in an attempt to keep him quiet.
“If granted, the U.S. would essentially be granting MBS immunity for conduct that succeeded in killing Jamal Khashoggi and failed to kill my dad,” said Aljabri’s son, Toronto-based cardiologist Khalid Aljabri, who acts as a spokesperson for the family. “Lack of accountability is one thing, but allowing impunity through immunity is like issuing a license to kill.”
Trump has refused reports from his own intelligence community that Mohammed ordered the killing, and has worked to improve relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, preventing Congress from censuring the country’s government and not criticizing its alleged human rights abuses.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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