A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday (December 06, 2022) dismissed a lawsuit against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, bowing to the Biden administration’s insistence that the prince was legally immune in the case. District of Columbia U.S. District Judge John D. Bates heeded the U.S. government’s motion to shield Prince Mohammed from the lawsuit despite what Bates called “credible allegations of his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder.” A team of Saudi officials killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, had written critically of the harsh ways of Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler. The U.S. intelligence community concluded the Saudi crown prince ordered the operation against Khashoggi. The killing opened a rift between the Biden administration and Saudi Arabia that the administration has tried in recent months to close, as the U.S. unsuccessfully urged the kingdom to undo oil production cuts in a global market racked by the Ukraine war. Read: Jamal Khashoggi killing: Rights group files complaint against Saudi crown prince Khashoggi had entered the Saudi consulate to obtain documents needed for his upcoming marriage. His fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who had waited unknowingly outside the consulate as he was killed, and a rights group founded by Khashoggi before he died brought the lawsuit. The lawsuit also named two top aides of the prince as accomplices. The Biden administration, invited but not ordered by the judge to offer an opinion on the matter, declared last month that Prince Mohammed’s standing as Saudi Arabia’s prime minister gave him sovereign immunity from the U.S. lawsuit. Saudi Arabia’s king, Salman, had named Prince Mohammed, his son, as prime minister weeks earlier. It was a temporary exemption from the kingdom’s governing code, which makes the king prime minister. Khashoggi’s fiancee and his rights group argued the move was a maneuver to shield the prince from the U.S. court. Read: Saudi crown prince: First EU visit since Khashoggi killing Bates expressed “uneasiness” with the circumstances of Prince Mohammed’s new title, and wrote in Tuesday’s order that “there is a strong argument that plaintiffs’ claims against bin Salman and the other defendants are meritorious.” But the government’s finding that Prince Mohammed was immune left him no choice but to dismiss the prince as a plaintiff, the judge wrote. He also dismissed the two other Saudi plaintiffs, saying the U.S. court lacked jurisdiction over them. The Biden administration argued longstanding legal precedent on immunity for heads of government from other nations’ courts, in some circumstances, demanded that the prince be shielded as prime minister, regardless of the prince only recently obtaining the title. The Biden administration already had spared Prince Mohammed from government penalties in the case, again citing sovereign immunity. Rights groups and Saudi exiles argued that sparing Prince Mohammed from accountability in Khashoggi’s killing would give the crown prince and other authoritarian rulers around the world a green light for future abuses. Read More: Oil price war, Mecca ban are latest risks by Saudi prince

The Biden administration declared Thursday that the high office held by Saudi Arabia's crown prince should shield him from lawsuits for his role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, a turnaround from Joe Biden's passionate campaign trail denunciations of Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the brutal slaying. The administration said 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 U.S. 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 U.S. and its allies to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine. The State Department on Thursday called the administration's decision to try to protect the Saudi crown prince from U.S. courts in Khashoggi's killing “purely a legal determination." Saudi officials killed Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. They are believed to have dismembered him, although his remains have never been found. The U.S. intelligence community concluded Saudi Arabia’s crown prince had approved the killing of the widely known and respected journalist, who had written critically of Prince Mohammed’s harsh ways of silencing of those he considered rivals or critics. The Biden administration statement Thursday noted visa restrictions and other penalties that it had meted out to lower-ranking Saudi officials in the death. “From the earliest days of this Administration,the United States Government has expressed its grave concerns regarding Saudi agents’ responsibility for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder,” the State Department said. Its statement did not mention the crown prince's own alleged role. Biden as a candidate vowed to make a “pariah” out of Saudi rulers over the 2018 killing of Khashoggi. Read more: US implicates Saudi crown prince in journalist Jamal Khashoggi's killing “I think it was a flat-out murder,” Biden said in a 2019 CNN town hall, as a candidate. “And I think we should have nailed it as that. I publicly said at the time we should treat it that way and there should be consequences relating to how we deal with those — that power.” But Biden as president has sought to ease tensions with the kingdom, including bumping fists with Prince Mohammed on a July trip to the kingdom, as the U.S. works to persuade Saudi Arabia to undo a series of cuts in oil production. Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and DAWN sued the crown prince, his top aides and others in Washington federal court over their alleged roles in Khashoggi's killing. Saudi Arabia says the prince had no direct role in the slaying. “It’s beyond ironic that President Biden has singlehandedly assured MBS can escape accountability when it was President Biden who promised the American people he would do everything to hold him accountable," the head of DAWN, Sarah Leah Whitson, said in a statement, using the prince's acronym. Biden in February 2021 had ruled out the U.S. government imposing punishment on Prince Mohammed himself in the killing of Khashoggi, a resident of the Washington area. Biden, speaking after he authorized release of a declassified version of the intelligence community's findings on Prince Mohammed's role in the killing, argued at the time there was no precedent for the U.S. to move against the leader of a strategic partner. The U.S. military long has safeguarded Saudi Arabia from external enemies, in exchange for Saudi Arabia keeping global oil markets afloat. “It’s impossible to read the Biden administration’s move today as anything more than a capitulation to Saudi pressure tactics, including slashing oil output to twist our arms to recognize MBS’s fake immunity ploy,” Whitson said. A federal judge in Washington had given the U.S. government until midnight Thursday to express an opinion on the claim by the crown prince's lawyers that Prince Mohammed's high official standing renders him legally immune in the case. The Biden administration also had the option of not stating an opinion either way. Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, holds that states and their officials are protected from some legal proceedings in other foreign states’ domestic courts. Upholding the concept of “sovereign immunity” helps ensure that American leaders in turn don’t have to worry about being hauled into foreign courts to face lawsuits in other countries, the State Department said. Read more: Washington Post: Turkish officials say Saudi writer killed Human rights advocates had argued that the Biden administration would embolden Prince Mohammed and other authoritarian leaders around the world in more rights abuses if it supported the crown prince's claim that his high office shielded him from prosecution. Prince Mohammed serves as Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler in the stead of his aged father, King Salman. The Saudi king in September also temporarily transferred his title of prime minister — a title normally held by the Saudi monarch — to Prince Mohammed. Critics called it a bid to strengthen Mohammed’s immunity claim.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia will take over as the Arab country’s prime minister, and Prince Khalid bin Salman will take over as defence minister, according to a royal order cited by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) on Tuesday. The crown prince, who is Saudi King Salman’s heir apparent, already possesses a wide range of authority and is regarded as the day-to-day ruler of the kingdom. The Saudi Press Agency also stated that King Salman will continue to preside over the meetings of the Cabinet, Associated Press reported. Read: Oil price war, Mecca ban are latest risks by Saudi prince Saudi Arabia’s comprehensive plan to modernise its economy and eliminate its reliance on oil, known as “Vision 2030”, has been spearheaded by the 37-year-old crown prince, popularly known as MBS. MBS has been associated with the murder of Saudi journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared after entering the Saudi Consulate in Turkey’s Istanbul. According to US intelligence, the crown prince probably gave the murder his approval. Read: Saudi prince's anti-corruption sweep ends with $106B netted The prince denied ordering the killing but stated in 2019 that he accepted “all responsibility” for it because it occurred under his watch. Saudi officials have claimed that renegade Saudi security and intelligence personnel were responsible for Khashoggi’s murder. Although they have not been named, Saudi Arabian authorities claim to have jailed eight Saudi citizens for the murder. Despite having previously pledged to declare Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the Khashoggi murder, US President Joe Biden visited the kingdom and had a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince MBS earlier this year, indicating the continued significance of relations with the greatest oil exporter in the world.

Wearing a mock Arab headdress, Chris Greenslade, between swigs from a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, was proudly embracing his club’s new status as one of the richest in world sports. “We’re Saudis,” the 41-year-old Newcastle fan said. “We can afford anything.” Read: Premier League club Newcastle bought by Saudi sovereign fund The gloating and celebrations from fans were only before Sunday's match against Tottenham at St. James' Park, as the new era under Saudi ownership was heralded, before reality set in. Callum Wilson put Newcastle ahead after only 107 seconds before the hosts collapsed to lose 3-2 and remain in the relegation zone. Much spending will be needed on players, along with a new manager as the crowd was demanding. To receive the investment, Newcastle fans have to — reluctantly in many cases — accept their long-underachieving club becoming embroiled in a sporting moral maze of the ethics of ownership by a state. Embracing the riches of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund to remove a long-despised owner means an unwelcome attachment with the murkier side of a kingdom. “You’re going to get stuff like that along there,” Greenslade says, pointing out a vehicle emblazoned with the name “Jamal Khashoggi” alongside an image of the journalist murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. There was also a photo of the Saudi crown prince implicated in the gruesome plot: Mohammed bin Salman. “Is there any evidence?” Greenslade said. “Is it nailed on?

An international media rights group has filed a complaint with German prosecutors against Saudi Arabia's crown prince and four other top officials accusing them of crimes against humanity over allegations they were involved in the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, authorities said Tuesday.

Israeli media reported Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia for a clandestine meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which would mark the first known encounter between senior Israeli and Saudi officials.