ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A US judge on Wednesday said that the Saudi Crown Prince was entitled to sovereign immunity despite "credible allegations" of his possible involvement in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, weeks after the Biden administration contended that the prince should be granted immunity.
John Bates, a Washington federal judge, accepted the US government's position that Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was appointed Saudi Arabia's prime minister in September, is a foreign head of state in US courts and is thus granted immunity.
Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi's Turkish fiancée, and an activist group filed a lawsuit accusing the Prince of conspiring to murder Khashoggi.
However, Bates stated he had no authority to overrule the formal statement submitted to court on November 17 stating that he had been granted immunity.
He added that the US government's executive branch "remains responsible for foreign affairs, including with Saudi Arabia, and a contrary decision on bin Salman's immunity by this Court would unduly interfere with those responsibilities."
The killing of the Saudi critic, a 59-year-old journalist, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, was a murder that stunned the world.
When Khashoggi went to Turkey to obtain marriage documents from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, he walked into the building and never left; his body has yet to be found.
Biden declassified an intelligence report that found Prince Mohammed had approved the operation against Khashoggi, an assertion Saudi authorities deny, according to AFP.
President Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in July to strengthen ties with the Saudi prince, calling the allegations "outrageous" during bilateral talks.
Five people were handed death sentences by Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi's killing, but a Saudi court in September 2020 overturned them while giving jail terms of up to 20 years to eight unnamed defendants following secretive legal proceedings.
