Federal judge dismisses case against Saudi Crown Prince over killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, citing sovereign immunity

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A federal judge threw out a civil lawsuit against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, citing his legal immunity as prime minister of Saudi Arabia.  

Key Players

Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist and columnist for The Washington Post prior to his murder in October 2018. An outspoken critic of the Saudi regime, Khashoggi was assassinated by a hit squad while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, and was subsequently dismembered in an attempt to cover up the killing. His murder sparked calls for the United States to sever its ties with the Saudi government and those responsible for his death.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known colloquially as MBS, is the prime minister of Saudi Arabia. He was elevated to the position in September 2022 by his father, King Salman, a move that formalized the crown prince’s power as the de facto leader of the country. He has been accused of ordering the death of Khashoggi as part of a multiyear campaign to silence Saudi dissenters. Both the Turkish government and the CIA have determined the prince was ultimately responsible for Khashoggi’s death.  

Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, and the civil rights organization Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which Khashoggi founded before his death, filed a civil lawsuit against Prince Mohammed, seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the murder of Khashoggi. 

Further Details

The controversy surrounding the relationship between the United States and Prince Mohammed has continued into Joe Biden’s presidency. On the campaign trail in 2019, Biden promised he’d hold Saudi Arabia accountable and make him a “pariah.”

On Oct. 20, 2020, Cengiz and DAWN filed a lawsuit against the prince and more than 20 other Saudi officials, alleging they were responsible for Khashoggi’s murder. 

U.S. District Judge John Bates, nominated by former President George W. Bush, requested that the Biden administration weigh in on the case, given the crown prince’s potential immunity as prime minister of Saudi Arabia. 

After consulting with both the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Biden administration concluded in a filing with the court in Washington, D.C., that because the crown prince had recently become the sitting head of government for Saudi Arabia, he was “immune” from potential civil or criminal liability. 

In the district court filing, the DOJ asserted that the legal doctrine of sovereign immunity, which protects state leaders from civil suits or criminal prosecution, was “well established in customary international law and has been consistently recognized in longstanding executive branch practice as a status-based determination that does not reflect a judgment on the underlying conduct at issue in the litigation.” 

The State Department affirmed that the United States had “consistently, and across administrations, applied these principles to heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers while they are in office.” Nonetheless, the Biden administration maintained its recommendation had “nothing to do with the merits of the case.”. 

“The United States government has expressed grave concerns regarding Jamal Khashoggi’s horrific killing and has raised these concerns publicly and with the most senior levels of the Saudi government,” the administration said. 

Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of DAWN, condemned the Biden administration’s decision as an “unnecessary, elective action that will serve only to undermine the most important action for accountability for Khashoggi’s heinous murder.”

In July 2022, when Biden and the crown prince met in Saudi Arabia in an effort to rebuild the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, Biden said he had “raised” the topic of the Khashoggi murder with the crown prince, implying that he was responsible for the journalist’s death.

Outcome

Bates dismisses case against crown prince, cites legal immunity 

On Dec. 6, 2022, Bates dismissed the lawsuit, citing the crown prince’s sovereign immunity. Bates highlighted his “uneasiness” in the decision, primarily because of the “suspicious timing” of the crown prince’s appointment to prime minister, which occurred in September 2022, but ruled that the crown prince was “entitled to head-of-state immunity” and dismissed the case.

“A contextualized look at the Royal Order thus suggests that it was not motivated by a desire for bin Salman to be the head of government, but instead to shield him from potential liability in this case,” Bates wrote, referring to MBS’s timely appointment by the monarchy.