RIYADH (Dispatches) – A human rights group warns that Washington may use the “premier” title that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman newly invented for himself as a legal ploy to shield the allied kingdom’s de facto ruler from lawsuits filed against him in the U.S., including those surrounding the gruesome murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In an interview with Arabi 21 media outlet, Raed Jarrar, director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), slammed the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden for adopting a “very weak” position on Khashoggi’s murder, despite promises of making the Saudis “pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are.”
“We regret the weakness of President Biden’s position, which was reflected in the U.S. relationship with most of the authoritarian regimes in the Arab world, especially at the level of relations with Israel, the Egyptian regime or the Saudi regime. These relationships have become cheap and disappointing,” he said.
“Biden could not change the course or approach of the previous U.S. administration, but we are putting pressure on the Biden administration internally in Washington, whether as non-governmental organizations or with members of the U.S. Congress, to change these failed policies,” the activist said.
Jarrar said the fabricated title of “prime minister” was an attempt by bin Salman to avoid international lawsuits against the crown prince, who is widely reported to have ordered the assassination, warning that Washington may choose to work hand in gloves with MBS over his bid to secure immunity in the case.
Jarrar said DAWN would pressure the American government not to recognize the step taken by bin Salman. He underscored that “the legal team of the DAWN organization will explain to the American court that this step should not affect the course of justice at all.”
In a royal decree on September 19, Mohammad bin Salman was appointed as prime minister.
The decree did not state the reason behind the appointment. However, experts believe the decision was an attempt to protect him from the potentially-damaging lawsuits related to the assassination of Khashoggi.
In October 2020, two years after Khashoggi’s death, DAWN filed a complaint in the U.S. along with Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, accusing the crown prince of being involved in a conspiracy that led to Khashoggi being kidnapped, bound, drugged, tortured and assassinated.
Khashoggi, who was murdered and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, used to be a vocal critic of the Saudi regime and the crown prince.
The CIA concluded in 2018 that MBS had ordered the killing of Khashoggi, contradicting Saudi Arabia’s insistence that the crown prince had had no prior knowledge of the plot.