Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has immunity from a lawsuit over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Biden administration said on Thursday, facing immediate condemnation from the slain journalist’s former fiancee.
Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in October 2018 by Saudi agents in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, an operation that US intelligence believed was ordered by Prince Mohammed, who has been the kingdom’s de facto ruler for several years.
“Jamal died again today,” Khashoggi’s ex-fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, said on Twitter minutes after the news became public.
“We thought maybe there would be a light to justice from USA, but again, money came first. This is a world that Jamal doesn’t know about and me,” she added.
“This is a legal determination made by the State Department under longstanding and well-established principles of customary international law,” a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said in a written statement as quoted by Reuters. “It has nothing to do with the merits of the case.”
The prince, known by his initials MbS, has denied ordering Khashoggi’s killing but acknowledged later that it took place “under my watch.”
Khashoggi had criticized the crown prince’s policies in Washington Post columns. He had traveled to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain papers he needed to marry Cengiz, a Turkish citizen.
