But that move paid off on Thursday when the Biden administration said Prince Mohammed’s status as prime minister shielded him from a US lawsuit over his role in the 2018 killing of a US-based journalist by Saudi officials. A judge will decide now whether Prince Mohammed has immunity. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby insisted Friday that the government’s declaration of immunity for the Saudi crown prince was purely a “legal determination” that had “absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the case itself.” Many international law experts agreed with the administration — but only because the king’s title was strengthened in late September for the crown prince, ahead of a planned U.S. decision. “It would be just as remarkable for the United States to deny head of state immunity to MBS after his appointment as Prime Minister as it would be for the United States to grant head of state immunity before his appointment.” William S. Dodge, a professor at the University of California-Davis School of Law, wrote, using the prince’s initials. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel on Friday gave examples of previous cases in which the US has granted immunity to heads of government or state — Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and India’s Narendra Modi, both on charges of rights abuses. The suit was filed in federal court in Washington by the fiancee of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi and a rights group she founded based in DC. It accuses the crown prince and about 20 aides, officers and others of planning and carrying out Khashoggi’s assassination at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The killing, condemned by Biden at his 2019 campaign trial as “simple murder” that should have consequences for Saudi Arabia’s rulers, is at the heart of a rift between strategic partners the United States and Saudi Arabia. Before and immediately after taking office, Biden pledged to take a stand for the Saudi crown prince as part of a rights-based and values-based presidency. But Biden has since offered a fist bump and other conciliatory gestures in the hope — so far dashed — of persuading the crown prince to pump more oil for global markets. The Biden administration argues that Saudi Arabia is too important to the global economy and regional security to allow the United States to walk away from decades of cooperation. But rights advocates, some senior Democratic lawmakers and Khashoggi’s newspaper, The Washington Post, condemned the administration’s move on Friday. “Jamal died again today,” Khashoggi’s fiancee, Khadija Cengiz, tweeted. Fred Ryan, editor of the Post, called it a “cynical, calculated attempt” to manipulate the law and shield Prince Mohammed. Khashoggi wrote columns for the Post in recent months criticizing the crown prince’s rights abuses. “By pursuing this plan, President Biden is turning his back on the fundamental principles of press freedom and equality,” Ryan wrote. Cengiz and Khashoggi’s rights group, Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, had argued that the crown prince’s title change in late September was nothing more than a maneuver to escape US courts, without legal standing or any change in authority or in duties. Saudi Arabia has not publicly commented on the administration’s decision. Spokesmen for the Saudi Arabian Embassy and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Friday. Saudi Arabia blames “rogue” officials for Khashoggi’s murder. He says the prince played no part. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, unlike a constitutional one like the UK, where a prime minister rather than a king or queen rules. “Very pathetic,” Sarah Leah Whitson, head of the Khashoggi rights group, said Friday of the title change. “If anything, it just showed how scared and fearful Mohammed bin Salman was about our lawsuit and real accountability and real discovery of his crimes,” Whitson said. The Biden administration appeared to reject her group’s argument that Prince Mohammed’s recent title change is against Saudi Arabian government law and should be ignored. King Salman has continued to make appointments and chair his council meetings since the title change. But Prince Mohammed has for years been a key decision-maker and actor in the kingdom, including representing the king abroad. Some Western news outlets had portrayed the temporary handover of the prime ministership as King Salman — who is in his late 80s — hands over responsibility to Prince Mohammed, who is 37. A federal judge has given the US until Thursday to rule, or not, on the crown prince’s claim that his position shields him from US courts. Rights advocates had hoped until the filing that the administration would remain silent, offering no opinion on Prince Mohammed’s immunity. Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, holds that states and their officials are protected from certain legal proceedings in the courts of other foreign states. Previous criminal and civil cases brought against foreign governments and leaders in which the US has not intervened have generally involved countries with which the US does not have diplomatic relations or does not recognize their heads of state or government as legitimate. Cases brought against Iran and North Korea seeking damages for the deaths or injuries of American citizens are two prominent examples of cases where the executive branch has not taken a stand on sovereign immunity. In contrast, the United States has full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. The State Department stressed Thursday that upholding the principle for leaders of other governments helps ensure that courts in other countries do not seek to haul US presidents before them to answer lawsuits there. Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, said the US decision had “absolutely nothing to do” with “strained” US-Saudi relations over Saudi-led oil production cuts and other issues. Biden has been “very, very vocal” about Khashoggi’s “brutal, barbaric murder,” Kirby said. However, some of Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress expressed dismay at the administration’s move. “Is the government abandoning its trust in the judgment of its own intelligence community?” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, said in a statement. “If Khashoggi’s friends and family are denied a path of accountability in the American justice system, where in the world can they go?” Whitson, the official for the Khashoggi rights group, said the lawsuit will continue against the others named in the suit. __ Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
