US Moves to Shield Saudi Crown Prince in Journalist Killing

The US administration declared that the high office held by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince should shield him from lawsuits for his role in the killing of Khashoggi, a turnaround from Joe Biden’s passionate campaign trail denunciations of Mohammed bin Salman over the brutal slaying.

The US administration said on Thursday that the prince’s official standing should give him immunity in the lawsuit filed by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group he founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.

The request is non-binding and a judge will ultimately decide whether to grant immunity. But it is bound to anger human rights activists and many US lawmakers, coming as Saudi Arabia has stepped up imprisonment and other retaliation against peaceful critics at home and abroad and has cut oil production, a move seen as undercutting efforts by the US and its allies to punish Russia for the war in Ukraine.

The State Department on Thursday called the administration’s decision to try to protect the Saudi crown prince from US courts in Khashoggi’s killing “purely a legal determination.”