Khashoggi: Pro-democracy group serves Saudi crown prince with murder complaint
The fiancee of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the pro-democracy organisation he established say they have served Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a legal complaint over his death.
The US-based Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) said
the complaint said the prince and Saudi officials "acting in a conspiracy
and with premeditation, kidnapped, bound, drugged and tortured, and
assassinated [Khashoggi]".
Dawn said the lawsuit, filed in the US, seeks relief for the
"severe pain and suffering and significant damages" to Khashoggi's
fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, as well as for interrupting his contract with the
organisation, which he had been heading until he was killed.
Khashoggi, a Middle East Eye columnist and prominent critic
of the Saudi government, was murdered and dismembered inside the kingdom's
consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, after going there to get documents for
his wedding to Cengiz.
"While MBS may have evaded sanctions by our government
for his role in the murder, he won't evade prosecution by our judicial system
for the damage he has caused us and Cengiz," said Sarah Leah Whitson,
executive director of Dawn.
A statement from Dawn said the judge had approved
alternative methods of serving the complaint to the crown prince, commonly
referred to as MBS, including through WhatsApp messaging and the media.
"We look forward to seeing MBS in court and finally
obtaining discovery of all of the evidence - including who knew what, when, in
our own government - implicating MBS and his co-conspirators in this vicious
crime," said Whitson.
'Acting head of state'
Turkey is trying 26 Saudi suspects in absentia, including
the former deputy intelligence chief, Ahmed al-Assiri, and bin Salman's former
media aide, Saud al-Qahtani, who are accused by prosecutors of leading the
operation.
Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden defended the
decision not to sanction the crown prince, despite the release of a US intelligence
report that identified bin Salman as responsible for the murder.
"We held accountable all the people in that
organisation - but not the crown prince, because we have never that I'm aware
of, when we have an alliance with a country, gone to the acting head of state
and punished that person and ostracised him," Biden said, according to a
partial transcript released by ABC.
Biden's statement contradicts previous assertions by the
White House that King Salman is the US president's counterpart and MBS is not
the head of state in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia denies that bin Salman had any role in
Khashoggi's murder.
The plaintiffs in Dawn's case against the crown prince and
other Saudi officials are represented by former US ambassador Keith Harper and
Faisal Gill.
"This lawsuit seeks not only to hold MBS and other
senior Saudi Arabian officials accountable for Jamal's murder, but also to put
the Saudi government and other abusive governments on notice that they will pay
a price for such extrajudicial killings of journalists and activists,"
said Gill.
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