Trump mulls granting legal immunity to Saudi’s MBS over ex-spy chief’s assassination plot

The US administration of President Donald Trump is considering a Saudi request to grant Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) legal immunity from a federal lawsuit accusing him of targeting for assassination a former top intelligence officer, the Washington Post has reported.

“The Saudi government has asked that the prince be shielded from liability in response to a complaint brought by Saad Aljabri, a former Saudi counterterrorism leader and longtime US intelligence ally now living in exile in Canada,” the Washington Post said.

Khalid Al-Jabri, Saad Al-Jabri’s eldest son and the family’s spokesman, said Washington’s support for the Saudi request would give a green light to more assassinations.

“If granted, the US would essentially be granting MBS immunity for conduct that succeeded in killing Jamal Khashoggi and failed to kill my dad,” he said, adding that “lack of accountability is one thing, but allowing impunity through immunity is like issuing a license to kill.”

READ: Saudi crown prince asks US court to dismiss assassination lawsuit

The Saudi request to the Trump administration comes as the State Department, Al-Jabri’s family, and supportive US lawmakers have condemned Riyadh for detaining two of Al-Jabri’s children in a bid to silence him.

Earlier this month, lawyers for MBS and other co-defendants asked a federal judge to dismiss Al-Jabri’s lawsuit, accusing him, his children and his associates of misspending or stealing a “staggering” $11 billion allocated by the Saudi government to a counterterrorism fund under his management between 2001 and 2015.

2 years after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder MBS has nothing to be worried about – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]