US cites Modi’s example to defend protection from prosecution given to Saudi crown prince

The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has received the same level of protection from prosecution in the US as was given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a US State Department spokesperson said in a briefing on Friday.

Pressed about granting immunity to the Saudi crown prince over the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in which he is an accused, US State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said, “This is not the first time that the United States has done this. It is a longstanding and consistent line of effort. It has been applied to a number of heads of state previously.”

Also read: US moves to shield Saudi crown prince in journalist killing

‘Consistent practice’

“Some examples: President Aristide in Haiti in 1993, President Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2001, Prime Minister Modi in India in 2014, and President Kabila in the DRC in 2018. This is a consistent practice that we have afforded to heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers,” he said.

The US had placed Modi on a visa ban in 2005 over allegations that his government did nothing to stop the 2002 riots in Gujarat as chief minister.

Until his election as Prime Minister in 2014, the US maintained that there is “no change in its policy”, even after the United Kingdom and the European Union ended their boycott.

In the case of Saudi crown prince, the US administration submitted a declaration of sovereign immunity to a federal court in Washington that is considering the lawsuit filed by Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz aka Khadija Genghis, and the Democracy Organization for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a human rights organization founded by Jamal Khashoggi.

The Biden administration had said earlier that Khashoggi was killed at the direction of the Saudi crown prince.

Justice Dept declaration

In a filing released late on Thursday night, the Biden administration said the crown prince’s recent promotion to the role of prime minister meant that he was “the sitting head of government and, accordingly, immune” from the lawsuit.

The Biden Administration declares immunity for Saudi Crown Prince MbS in the Khashoggi murder case in the US pic.twitter.com/vKZOtDwaAT

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“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 Department of Justice said in its filing, adding that the US had also imposed financial sanctions and visa restrictions related to the murder.

Also read: Saudi crown prince approved killing of Jamal Khashoggi: US report

“However, the doctrine of head of state immunity is 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,” it said.