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Tag: Jamal Khashoggi

  • News Analysis: How the Saudi crown prince went from pariah to feted White House guest

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    BEIRUT  — Seven years ago, he was virtually persona non grata, any link to him considered kryptonite among U.S. political and business elite for his alleged role in the killing of a Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic.

    But when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman came to Washington this week, he cemented a remarkable comeback, positioning himself as the linchpin of a new regional order in the Middle East, and his country as an essential partner in America’s AI-driven future.

    During what amounted to a state visit, the crown prince — Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader — was given the literal red carpet treatment: A Marine band, flag-bearing horsemen and a squadron of F-35s in the skies above; a black-tie dinner attended by a raft of business leaders in the prince’s honor; a U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center the next day.

    Throughout, Bin Salman (or MBS, as many call him) proved himself a keen practitioner of the brand of transactional politics favored by President Trump.

    President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman walk down the Colonnade on the way to the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday.

    (Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)

    He fulfilled Trump’s ask, first floated back in May during the Riyadh edition of the U.S.-Saudi Forum, to raise the kingdom’s U.S. investment commitments from $600 million to almost $1 trillion.

    And the prince managed to mollify Trump in his oft-repeated call for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, the normalization pacts with Israel brokered during the president’s first term, even while changing nothing of his long-stated position: That establishing ties with Israel be accompanied by steps toward Palestinian statehood — an outcome many in Israel’s political class reject.

    “We believe having a good relation with all Middle Eastern countries is a good thing, and we want to be part of the Abraham Accords. But we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path [to a] two-state solution,” Bin Salman said.

    “We want peace with the Israelis. We want peace with the Palestinians, we want them to coexist peacefully,” he added.

    President Trump greets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, at the White House.

    President Trump greets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, at the White House on Tuesday.

    (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)

    At home in Saudi Arabia, the trip was touted as an unequivocal triumph for the prince. Saudi state media boasted the country’s emergence as a major non-NATO ally for the U.S., and the signing of a so-called Strategic Defense Agreement as demonstrating Riyadh’s centrality to American strategic thinking.

    This touting came despite little clarity on what that agreement actually entails: Its text wasn’t published, and it was mentioned only in passing in a White House “fact sheet,” which emphasized Saudi Arabia would “buy American” with significant purchases of tanks, missiles and F-35s; the latter would be the first time the U.S.’ most advanced jet is sold to an Arab country.

    Saudi Arabia will also be given access to top-line AI chips, enabling it to leverage plentiful land and energy resources to build data centers while “protecting U.S. technology from foreign influence,” according to the White House.

    Talks over Riyadh’s civilian nuclear program, stalled for a decade over concerns from previous administrations, yielded a framework that in theory allows Saudi Arabia to build a nuclear plant. Uranium enrichment, which in theory would allow weaponization, isn’t part of the agreement, U.S. officials say.

    Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud and President Trump watch a flyover.

    Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Trump watch a flyover of F-15 and F-35 fighters before meeting at the White House.

    (Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)

    On the regional politics front, Bin Salman got a pledge from Trump to help broker an end to the war in Sudan.

    The visit capped Bin Salman’s stunning redemption arc from the nadir of his reputation seven years ago.

    Back then, his image as a dauntless reformer — reversing bans on women driving, neutering the country’s notorious religious police — was already crumbling after he sought to silence not only foreign opponents, but anyone domestically who questioned Vision 2030, his far-reaching (and hugely expensive) plan for transforming Saudi Arabia.

    Then came the 2018 strangulation and dismemberment in Turkey of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi insider-turned-mild-critic and Washington Post columnist.

    Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seen inside a vehicle.

    Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seen inside a vehicle while leaving the White House after a meeting in the Oval Office with President Trump.

    (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)

    Trump appeared more inclined to side with the prince, who denied any involvement in the killing, but the CIA said in a leaked report it had high confidence the prince ordered Khashoggi’s assassination.

    Association with Bin Salman, once Washington’s Middle East darling, became toxic. International companies rushed to pull out of the kingdom. Politicians made it clear he was unwelcome. Then-candidate Joe Biden vowed to make the Saudi government “a pariah.”

    In time, the prince stepped back from his more pugilistic policies, while geopolitics, energy concerns and a turbulent Middle East forced Biden to moderate his rejectionist stance.

    In 2022, Biden visited the prince — giving him a tepid fist bump — to coax him into lowering energy prices.

    That same year, Riyadh helped broker a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine. Later, a China-brokered agreement saw the prince calm his country’s stormy diplomatic relations with Iran. Just last month, he reportedly worked behind the scenes to push through a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

    His White House visit seemed to cement his comeback, but little of what was promised is a done deal.

    For one, whether Saudi Arabia can pony up $1 trillion — a figure amounting to 80% of its annual GDP and more than twice its foreign exchange reserves — is an open question.

    Crucially, the prince didn’t specify when the money would be invested.

    Though the investment pledge is big, “how much and over what period of time is completely unclear,” said Tim Callen, an economist and former International Monetary Fund mission chief to Saudi Arabia.

    Saudi Arabia is also pulling back on its government spending, with deflated oil prices forcing it to downsize many of its gigaprojects, Callen added.

    “The pot of money available to push out all these projects and investments has shrunk, relative to 2022 and 2023,” he said.

    “My take on it is that things are going to advance both on the investment and trade side [between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia] because there are mutual economic interests between the two countries,” he said. But in the short term, he added, $1 trillion “is too big a number for the economy of Saudi Arabia.”

    As for F-35s, seeing them on Saudi runways is likely to take years. Congress has to approve F-35 sales, and some opposition could arise if they’re seen to jeopardize Israel’s qualitative military edge.

    Israel, the only nation in the F-35 program allowed to use certain specialized technology, would expect Saudi Arabia to receive “planes of reduced caliber,” Trump said on Tuesday, with the prince on his side.

    “I don’t think that makes you too happy,” he said to the prince.

    “As far as I’m concerned,” Trump added, “I think [Israel and Saudi Arabia] are both at a level where they should get top of the line.”

    But the bigger obstacle may be Saudi Arabia’s links to China, said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory and an aviation analyst.

    Saudi security forces stand at attention beneath a portrait of Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

    Saudi security forces stand at attention beneath a portrait of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, during a military parade as pilgrims arrive for the annual pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca on May 31.

    (AFP via Getty Images)

    In recent years, Saudi Arabia has run military exercises with the Chinese navy and fielded Chinese-made weapons in its armed forces. Ensuring it doesn’t get a look at the aircraft’s capabilities presents “a different set of challenges,” Aboulafia said. Similar concerns scuttled the United Arab Emirates’ attempts to acquire the jet, he added.

    Another issue is that a backlog in aircraft delivery means another recipient would need to give up their production slots in Saudi Arabia’s favor.

    Also key to Bin Salman’s return to the U.S.’ full embrace was his treatment by Trump at the White House.

    When a reporter asked the prince about the Khashoggi killing, it was Trump who put up a vociferous defense, and called Khashoggi “extremely controversial.”

    “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it,” Trump said, pointing to the crown prince.

    President Trump, right, and Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's crown prince, shake hands.

    President Trump, right, and Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, shake hands during their meeting in the Oval Office.

    (Nathan Howard / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

    Trump also took a swing at Biden’s fist bump, engaging in an awkward hand-grabbing game with Bin Salman.

    “I grabbed that hand,” Trump said. “I don’t give a hell where that hand’s been.”

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  • Trump says MBS “knew nothing” about journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing despite 2021 U.S. intel report’s findings

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    Washington — President Trump said Tuesday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, “knew nothing” about the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite a 2021 intelligence report finding bin Salman ordered the killing.

    “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial,” Mr. Trump said about Khashoggi in response to a question from a journalist about his business dealings with bin Salman despite the intelligence report’s findings. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that.”

    Sitting next to Mr. Trump in the Oval Office while visiting the White House, bin Salman said, “About the journalist, it’s really painful to hear that anyone losing his life for no real purpose.” The crown prince also said, “We did all the right steps in terms of investigation, etc., in Saudi Arabia and we’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that.”

    “It’s painful and it’s a huge mistake, and we are doing our best that will never happen again,” bin Salman said.

    Bin Salman is making his first visit to the White House since Khashoggi’s murder. Bin Salman has denied any involvement, but he told CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell in a 2019 “60 Minutes” interview, “I take full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the Saudi government.”

    The 2021 U.S. intelligence report concluded that “the Crown Prince has had absolute control over the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince’s authorization.”

    After Mr. Trump’s comments Tuesday, Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, directed a message on social media to him, writing, “There is no justification to murder my husband.”

    “While Jamal was a good transparent and brave man many people may not have agreed with his opinions and desire for freedom of the press,” she wrote.

    In an interview with CBS News, she said she was “hurt” and “disappointed” by the Oval Office remarks. 

    Mr. Trump called bin Salman his friend and praised him as “incredible on human rights and everything else” as the Saudi royal made his first visit to the White House since Khashoggi’s killing.

    Mr. Trump also insisted he has “nothing to do” with his family’s business dealings with Saudi Arabia, and said, “they’ve done very little with Saudi Arabia, actually.”

    As families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack have pursued a civil lawsuit alleging the kingdom sponsored, aided and supported the al Qaeda hijackers, bin Salman has sought to distance the Saudi government from the attack.

    “I feel painful about, you know, families of 9/11 in America, but you know, we have to focus on reality,” bin Salman said Tuesday. “Reality based on CIA documents and based on a lot of documents that Osama bin Laden used Saudi people in that event for one purpose: To destroy this relation, the American-Saudi relationship.”

    Bin Salman said that “whoever buys that” is “helping Osama bin Laden’s purpose of destroying this relation.” Bin Salman said bin Laden knew the “strong” relationship between America and Saudi Arabia is “bad for extremism.”

    Bin Salman and Mr. Trump announced Tuesday that Saudi Arabia will increase its investments of $600 billion in the U.S. to nearly $1 trillion.

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  • What Saudi Arabia and the U.S. hope to gain from each other

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    What Saudi Arabia and the U.S. hope to gain from each other – CBS News









































    Watch CBS News



    Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House is the latest example of Saudi Arabia aiming to strengthen its relationship with the U.S. Former Ambassador-at-Large Nathan Sales joins “The Takeout” with analysis.

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  • Trump contradicts US intelligence on Khashoggi murder

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    Alongside visiting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump forcefully defended the crown prince against accusations he ordered the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, an opinion columnist for The Washington Post.

    Khashoggi was visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018 when he was kidnapped, killed and dismembered.

    In the Nov. 18 Oval Office event with Trump and Salman, ABC News reporter Mary Bruce addressed the crown prince. She said U.S. intelligence “concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist.”

    “Why should Americans trust you?” she asked.

    Trump called ABC “fake news” but responded to Bruce’s question about Khashoggi’s killing.

    “As far as this gentleman is concerned, he’s done a phenomenal job,” Trump said. “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that.”

    Was Trump right that Prince Mohammed — who was making his first trip to Washington, D.C., since the murder — “knew nothing about” it? That’s not what a U.S. intelligence community analysis found when it took up the question in 2019, during Trump’s first term. Experts said that the U.S. intelligence report has gained wide acceptance within foreign policy circles.

    “I certainly accept it,” Gregory Gause, an emeritus professor at Texas A&M University’s George Bush School of Government and Public Service, said.

    Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, agreed.

    “The CIA’s conclusion is the generally accepted account,” Cook said. “I don’t know anyone outside of Saudi Arabia who believes that the crown prince had nothing to do with it.”

    The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this article. 

    What did the U.S. intelligence report say?

    The report — covered by journalists in 2018 and declassified and released in 2021 — found that the crown prince, commonly known as MBS, “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” 

    The report said it based the conclusion on “the Crown Prince’s control of decisionmaking in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman’s protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi.”

    The report said since 2017, Prince Mohammed “has had absolute control of the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince’s authorization.”

    The assessment found that the 15-member Saudi team that went to Istanbul included officials who worked for, or were associated with, a group headed by by Saud al-Qahtani, “a close adviser of Muhammad bin Salman, who claimed publicly in mid 2018 that he did not make decisions without the Crown Prince’s approval.”

    The team in Istanbul also included seven members of Prince Mohammed’s “elite personal protective detail” that “exists to defend the Crown Prince, answers only to him, and had directly participated in earlier dissident suppression operations in the Kingdom and abroad at the Crown Prince’s direction.”

    Given the crown prince’s degree of centralized control, the intelligence report said, “aides were unlikely to question Muhammad bin Salman’s orders or undertake sensitive actions without his consent.” 

    What has the crown prince said about his involvement?

    The crown prince denied knowledge of the plot to kill Khashoggi in a September 2019 interview with “60 Minutes.” 

    Asked whether he ordered the murder, the crown prince said, “Absolutely not. This was a heinous crime. But I take full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the Saudi government. … This was a mistake.”

    In the Nov. 18 Oval Office meeting, the crown prince did not directly respond to the accusation that he knew of the operation or planned it. 

    He said that the murder has “been painful for us in Saudi Arabia. We did all the right steps of investigation, etc., in Saudi Arabia, and we’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happens like that. … It’s a huge mistake, and we’re doing our best that this doesn’t happen again.”

    In an X post after the Oval Office remarks, Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, addressed Trump. “There is no justification to murder my husband,” she wrote. “While Jamal was a good transparent and brave man many people may not have agreed with his opinions and desire for freedom of the press. The Crown Prince said he was sorry so he should meet me, apologize and compensate me for the murder of my husband.”

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  • Trump has elaborate welcome planned for MBS during Saudi crown prince’s White House visit

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    President Trump has a warm and elaborate welcome planned for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, at the White House Tuesday, signaling his administration’s close ties to the Saudi kingdom as the president aims to lock in major business and national security deals. 

    Ahead of bin Salman’s arrival, the president told reporters Monday that the U.S. would sell F-35 fighter jets to the Saudis.

    The White House has prepared an arrival ceremony laden with fanfare for the crown prince, complete with cannons and U.S. and Saudi flags draped on buildings. The U.S. military will conduct an aircraft flyover over the White House during MBS’ arrival. 

    There will also be a black-tie dinner with bin Salman. There are 120 invited guests, according to a person familiar with the planning, and 30 will be from the Saudi delegation. Although it’s not a state dinner, it is the first formal dinner hosted by Mr. Trump in his second term to honor a nation’s leader. Bin Salman’s father, Salman bin Abdulaziz, is technically the head of state of the kingdom, but he delegated his duties as ruler to MBS in 2017. 

    “We’re more than meeting,” Mr. Trump said Friday of the visit. “We’re honoring Saudi Arabia.” 

    A senior administration official said the president will be making announcements regarding Saudi investment in U.S. AI infrastructure, enhanced cooperation on civil nuclear energy, defense sales and the fulfillment of the Saudis’ $600 billion investment pledge, which was announced during the president’s trip to Saudi Arabia in May.

    The White House visit is also expected to include an Oval Office meeting and lunch, similar to meetings the president has held with other world leaders in recent weeks. 

    White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly called the trip “an official working visit” in a statement and said, “Americans can expect more good deals for our country spanning technology, manufacturing, critical minerals, defense, and more.”

    Mr. Trump is also planning to attend a Saudi business summit in Washington, D.C., Wednesday. An invitation previously obtained by CBS News said the event at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will be co-hosted by the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia and the U.S.-Saudi Business Council. 

    Mr. Trump and his son-in-law and former top White House adviser Jared Kushner have fostered close relationships with the Saudis and the crown prince in particular, viewing them as critical partners for both security and business in a turbulent Middle East. The president said the Abraham Accords — an agreement from his first term that normalized diplomatic relations between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE  — would be a big topic of discussion during the visit. 

    “The Abraham Accords will be a part we’re going to be discussing,” Mr. Trump said over the weekend. “I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords fairly shortly. We’ve had tremendous interest in the Abraham Accords since we put Iran out of business.”

    Mr. Trump recently told “60 Minutes” contributing correspondent Norah O’Donnell that he thought bin Salman would join the agreement, although the Saudis have indicated that would not happen without a path to Palestinian statehood.

    The Trumps also have extensive and longheld personal business ties in Saudi Arabia. Last year, the Trump Organization announced plans for the development of a Trump Tower in Jeddah, a major Saudi city along the Red Sea. 

    Eric Trump, the president’s son and the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, told Reuters that the Trump Organization also has plans for a Trump-branded property in Riyadh. 

    And Kushner started a private equity firm, Affinity Partners, which received a reported $2 billion investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund controlled by bin Salman.

    The trip to the White House visit is the crown prince’s first U.S. visit since Washington Post journalist and human rights activist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in 2018 in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul by members of the Saudi government. The president has smoothed over relations with the Saudis since the CIA assessed about a month after Khashoggi’s killing that the crown prince had ordered it. Bin Salman has denied any involvement, but he told O’Donnell in a 2019 “60 Minutes” interview that he took responsibility for Khashoggi’s death.

    “I take full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the Saudi government,” he told O’Donnell.

    The Biden administration later released the Trump-era intelligence report concluding the crown prince “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

    Mr. Trump did not seek to punish bin Salman personally during his first administration and said he viewed Saudi Arabia as a “great ally,” noting the economic ties between the U.S. and the Saudis. The Trump administration did sanction 19 Saudi nationals over the killing. 

    “Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Mr. Trump posted on social media in November 2018. 

    “That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran.”

    Human rights advocates are dismayed about the treatment bin Salman is expected to receive in Washington, not only because of Khashoggi’s murder, but also because of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record under bin Salman. 

    “We know President Trump won’t ask MBS to reveal where Jamal’s remains are so his family can finally bury him,” said Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, an organization Khashoggi founded months before he was killed. “But the least he can do — the absolute minimum — is publicly press MBS to release the dozens of activists, writers and reformers languishing in Saudi prisons for the ‘crime’ of speaking freely.”

    Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director at DAWN, called bin Salman’s journey from castigation over Khashoggi’s murder to a high-profile White House welcome an “extraordinary political feat.” And that’s not just because of Mr. Trump’s gestures of friendship toward the crown prince. Whitson mentioned the “fist bump seen around the world,” as former President Joe Biden warmly greeted Khashoggi in Riyadh during his presidency “hat in hand.”

    “We went from the Biden administration narrowly sanctioning Mohamamd bin Salman himself for the murder of Khashoggi … to now welcoming him into Washington and not only sort of feting him for whatever lucrative deals he can pass to American businesses, but also to potentially actually help as a stabilizing force,” Whitson said. 

    Aaron Navarro and

    Ed O’Keefe

    contributed to this report.

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  • Saudi Crown Prince Plans First White House Visit Since 2018

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    Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader will visit Washington next month and meet President Trump in the Oval Office, people familiar with the matter said, capping a multiyear effort to restore his international standing with a trip that could lay the groundwork for an eventual deal to establish ties with Israel.

    The trip by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who last visited the U.S. in early 2018, is scheduled for Nov. 18 and 19, one of the people said. It would come a month after Trump negotiated a cease-fire to end Israel’s two-year war with Hamas in Gaza.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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  • Rulings signal US courts may be more open to lawsuits accusing foreign officials of abuses

    Rulings signal US courts may be more open to lawsuits accusing foreign officials of abuses

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. court has given two top associates of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman until early November to start turning over any evidence in a lawsuit from a former senior Saudi intelligence official who says he survived a plot by the kingdom to silence him.

    The order is among a spate of recent rulings suggesting U.S. courts are becoming more open to lawsuits seeking to hold foreign powers accountable for rights abuses, legal experts and advocates say. That is after a couple of decades in which American judges tended to toss those cases.

    The long-running lawsuit by former Saudi intelligence official Saad al-Jabri accuses Saudi Arabia of trying to assassinate him in October 2018. The kingdom calls the allegation groundless. That’s the same month the U.S., U.N. and others allege that aides of Prince Mohammed and other Saudi officials killed U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose columns for The Washington Post were critical of the crown prince.

    Al-Jabri’s lawsuit asserts that the plot against him involved at least one of the same officials, former royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani, whom the Biden administration has sanctioned over allegations of involvement in Khashoggi’s killing.

    The ruling is among a half-dozen recently giving hope to rights groups and dissidents that U.S. courts may be more open again to lawsuits that accuse foreign governments and officials of abuses — even when most of the alleged wrongdoing took place abroad.

    “More and more … it seems like the U.S. courts are an opportunity to directly hold governments accountable,” said Yana Gorokhovskaia, research director at Freedom House, a U.S.-based rights group that advocates for people facing cross-border persecution by repressive governments.

    “It’s an uphill battle,” especially in cases where little of the alleged harassment took place on U.S. soil, Gorokhovskaia noted. “But it’s more than we saw, definitely, even a few years ago.”

    Khalid al-Jabri, a doctor who like his father lives in exile in the West for fear of retaliation by the Saudi government, said the recent ruling allowing his father’s lawsuit to move forward will do more than help recent victims.

    It “hopefully, in the long run, will make … oppressive regimes think twice about transnational repression on U.S. soil,” the younger al-Jabri said.

    The Saudi Embassy in Washington acknowledged receiving requests for comment from The Associated Press in the al-Jabri case but did not immediately respond. Lawyers for one of the two Saudis named in the case, Bader al-Asaker, declined to comment, while al-Qahtani’s attorneys did not respond.

    Past court motions by lawyers for the crown prince called al-Jabri a liar wanted in Saudi Arabia to face corruption allegations and said there was no evidence of a Saudi plot to kill him.

    The Saudi government, meanwhile, has said the killing of Khashoggi by Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was a “rogue operation” carried out without the crown prince’s knowledge.

    Khashoggi’s killing and the events alleged by al-Jabri took place in a crackdown in the first years after King Salman and his son Prince Mohammed came to power in Saudi Arabia, after the 2015 death of King Abdullah. They detained critics and rights advocates, former prominent figures under the old king, and fellow princes for what the government often said were corruption investigations.

    Al-Jabri escaped to Canada. As with Khashoggi, the lawsuit alleges the crown prince sent a hit team known as the “Tiger Squad” to kill him there but claims the plot was foiled when Canadian officials questioned the men and examined their luggage. Canada has said little about the case, although a Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigator has testified that officials found the allegations credible and said they remain under investigation.

    Saudi Arabia detained a younger son and daughter of al-Jabri in what the family alleges is an effort to pressure the father to return to the kingdom.

    Until now, efforts to sue Saudi officials and the kingdom over Khashoggi’s and al-Jabri’s cases have foundered. U.S. courts have said that Prince Mohammed himself has sovereign immunity under international law.

    And judgments in civil cases against foreign governments and officials can have little effect beyond the reputational hit. Courts sometimes find in favor of the alleged victim by default when a regime or official fails to respond.

    U.S. courts noted the alleged plot against al-Jabri targeted him at his home in Canada, not in the United States, although al-Jabri alleges the crown prince’s aides used a network of Saudi informants in the U.S. to learn his whereabouts.

    Late this summer, a federal appeals court in Washington reversed a dismissal of al-Jabri’s claims by a lower court. He is legally entitled to gather any evidence to see if there is enough to justify trying the case in the U.S., the appeals court said.

    Federal courts ordered al-Qahtani and al-Asaker last month to start turning over all relevant texts, messages on apps and other communication in the case by Nov. 4.

    It’s an “exciting development,” said Ingrid Brunk, a professor of international law at Vanderbilt University and an expert in international litigation.

    Courts in the U.S. and other democracies have been favorite venues to bring human-rights cases against repressive governments. But rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court since 2004 had choked off such lawsuits in cases involving foreign parties, which often have little link to the U.S., Brunk said.

    Lately, however, particularly strong lawsuits against foreign officials and governments have been gaining footholds in U.S. courts again, she said.

    “There’s been some very good lawyering here,” Brunk said of al-Jabri’s long-running case.

    Other lawsuits also have pushed ahead. A U.S. appeals court in San Francisco last month allowed the revival of a case by Chinese dissidents accusing the Chinese government of spying on them.

    Rather than suing China, however, the dissidents targeted Cisco Systems, the Silicon Valley tech company they accused of developing the security system that allowed the spying.

    A federal jury trial in Florida this summer found Chiquita Brands liable in the killings of Colombian civilians by a right-wing paramilitary group that the banana company acknowledged paying. Lawyers called it a first against a major U.S. corporation.

    U.S. courts also have allowed human-rights-related lawsuits naming Turkey and India to move forward recently.

    Some of the uptick in human-rights cases — those naming foreign officials and governments or targeting U.S. corporations — in U.S. courts again stems from plaintiffs “pursuing really promising, really creative” legal approaches, Brunk said.

    Khalid al-Jabri said the family isn’t seeking money in its lawsuit. They want justice for his father, he said, and freedom for his detained sister and brother.

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  • Jared Kushner defends his equity firm getting $2 billion from Saudis after he left White House

    Jared Kushner defends his equity firm getting $2 billion from Saudis after he left White House

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    New York — Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s former White House adviser and his son-in-law, defended on Tuesday his business dealings after leaving government with the Saudi crown prince who was implicated in the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

    Kushner worked on a wide range of issues and policies in the Trump administration, including Middle East peace efforts, and developed a relationship with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has overseen social and economic reforms but also a far-reaching crackdown on dissent in the kingdom.

    Jared Kushner
    Jared Kushner in undated photo.

    Chris Kleponis / Polaris / Bloomberg / Getty Images


    After Kushner left the White House, he started a private equity firm that received a reported $2 billion investment from the sovereign wealth fund controlled by Prince Mohammed, drawing scrutiny from Democrats.

    Kushner, speaking at a summit in Miami on Tuesday sponsored by media company Axios, said he followed every law and ethics rule. He dismissed the idea of there being any concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest in his business deal.

    “If you ask me about the work that that we did in the White House, for my critics, what I say is point to a single decision we made that wasn’t in the interest of America,” Kushner said.

    He said the sovereign wealth fund, which has significant stakes in companies such as Uber, Nintendo and Microsoft, is one of the most prestigious investors in the world.

    He also defended Prince Mohammed when asked if he believed U.S. intelligence reports that the prince approved the 2018 killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist. The prince has denied any involvement.

    “Are we really still doing this?” Kushner at first said when he was asked if he believed the conclusions from U.S. intelligence.

    Kushner said he had not seen the intelligence report released in 2021 that concluded the crown prince likely approved Khashoggi’s killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

    “I know the person who I dealt with. I think he’s a visionary leader. I think what he’s done in that region is transformational,” Kushner said.

    He stood by the Trump administration’s policies and called it “one of the greatest compliments” that President Biden backed away from his initial stance to shun Saudis for human rights violations to instead work with the crown prince on issues like oil production and security in the region.

    “I understand why people, you know, are upset about that,” Kushner said of Khashoggi’s killing. “I think that what happened there was absolutely horrific. But again, our job was to represent America, and to try to push forward things in America.”

    Kushner also said he’s not interested in rejoining the White House if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, saying he was focused on his investment business and his living with his family in Florida, out of the public eye.

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  • The ‘dirty dozen’ of Davos

    The ‘dirty dozen’ of Davos

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    It’s that time of year again: Leaders, business titans, philanthropists and celebs descend on the Swiss ski town of Davos to discuss the fate of the world and do deals/shots with the global elite at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

    This year’s theme: “Rebuilding trust.” Prescient, given the dumpster fire the world seems to be turning into lately, both literally (climate change) and figuratively (where to even begin?).

    As always, the Davos great and good will be rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s absolute top-drawer dirtbags. While there’s been a distinct dearth of Russian oligarchs in attendance at the WEF since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Donald Trump will be tied up with the Iowa caucus, there are still plenty of would-be autocrats, dictators, thugs, extortionists, misery merchants, spoilers and political pariahs on the Davos guest list.

    1. Argentine President Javier Milei

    Known as the Donald Trump of Argentina — and also as “The Madman” and “The Wig” — the chainsaw-wielding Javier Milei has it all: a fanatical supporter base, background as a TV shock jock, libertarian anarcho-capitalist policies (except when it comes to abortion), and a … memorable … hairdo.

    A long-time Davos devotee (he’s been attending the WEF for years), Milei’s libertarian policies have turned from kooky thought bubbles to concerning reality after he was elected president of South America’s second-largest economy, riding a wave of discontent with the political establishment (sound familiar?). The question now is how far Milei will go in delivering on his campaign promises to hack back public service and state spending, close the Argentine central bank and drop the peso.

    If you do get stuck talking to Milei in the congress center or on the slopes, here are some conversation starters …

    Milei’s likes: 1) American mobster Al Capone — “a hero.” 2) His cloned English Mastiff dogs — his advisers. 3) Spreading the gospel on tantric sex. 4) Selling human organs on the open market.

    Milei’s dislikes: 1) Pope Francis — “a filthy leftist” and “communist turd” — though the Milei administration has recently invited him back to Argentina to visit. 2) Taxes — insisting (incorrectly) Jesus didn’t pay ’em. 3) Sex education — a Marxist plot to destroy the family. 4) Fighting climate change — a hoax, naturally.

    2. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

    Rumor has it that Mohammed bin Salman will make his first in-person WEF appearance at this year’s event, accompanied by a giant posse of top Saudi officials.

    It’s the ultimate redemption arc for the repressive authoritarian ruler of a country with an appalling human rights record — who, according to United States intelligence, personally ordered the brutal assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. 

    Rumor has it that Mohammed bin Salman will make his first in-person WEF appearance at this year’s event | Leon Neal/Getty Images

    Perhaps MBS would still be a WEF pariah — consigned to rubbing shoulders with mere B-listers at his own Davos in the desert — if it were not for that other one-time Davos-darling-turned-persona-non-grata: Russian President Vladimir Putin. By launching his invasion of Ukraine, which killed thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of troops, Putin managed to push the West back into MBS’ embrace. Guess it’s all just oil under the bridge now.

    Here’s a piece of free advice: Try to avoid being caught getting a signature MBS fist-bump. Unless, of course, you’re the next person on our list …

    3. Jared Kushner, founder of Affinity Partners

    Jared Kushner is the closest anyone on the mountain is likely to come to Trump, the former — and possibly future — billionaire baron-cum-anti-elitist president of the United States of America. 

    On the one hand, a chat with The Donald’s son-in-law in the days just after the Iowa caucus would probably be quite a get for the Davos devotee. On other hand … it’s Jared Kushner.

    The 43-year-old, who is married to Ivanka Trump and served as a senior adviser to the former president during his time in office, leveraged his stint in the White House to build up a lucrative consulting career, focused mainly on the Middle East.

    Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, is largely funded through Gulf countries. That includes a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, led by bin Salman — which was, coincidentally, pushed through despite objections by the crown prince’s own advisers. 

    Kushner struck up a friendship and alliance with MBS during his father-in-law’s term in office, raising major conflict-of-interest suspicions for the Trump administration — especially when the then-U.S. president refused to condemn the Saudi leader in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, despite the CIA concluding he was directly involved.

    4. Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president

    What does an autocrat do with a breakaway state within his country’s borders? Take advantage of Russia’s attention being elsewhere along with the EU’s thirst for his gas to launch a lightning-fast offensive, seize control, deport those pesky ancestral residents, lock up any rascally reporters — and then call a snap election to capitalize on the freshly whipped patriotic fervor, of course!

    Not that elections matter much for Ilham Aliyev — a little ballot stuffing here, a bit of double-voting there, add a sprinkle of violence and suppression — and hey presto, you’ve got a winning recipe, for two decades and counting.

    Running Azerbaijan is something of a family business for the Aliyevs — Ilham assumed power after the death of his father, Heydar Aliyev, an ex-Soviet KGB officer who ruled the country for decades. And the junior Aliyev changed Azerbaijan’s constitution to pave the path to power for the next generation of his family — and appointed his own wife as vice president to boot.

    5. Chinese Premier Li Qiang

    Li Qiang is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ultra-loyal right-hand man, and will represent his boss and his country at the World Economic Forum this year.

    Li’s claim to infamy: imposing a brutal lockdown on the entirety of Shanghai for weeks during the coronavirus pandemic, which trapped its 25 million-plus inhabitants at home while many struggled to get food, tend to their animals or seek medical help — and tanking the city’s economy in the process.

    Li’s also the guy selling (and whitewashing) China’s Uyghur policy in the Islamic world. In case you need a refresher, China has detained Uyghurs, who are mostly Muslim, in internment camps in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where there have been allegations of torture, slavery, forced sterilization, sexual abuse and brainwashing. China’s actions have been branded genocide by the U.S. State Department, and as potential crimes against humanity by the United Nations.

    Li Qiang will represent his boss and his country at the World Economic Forum this year | Johannes Simon/Getty Images

    The Chinese government claims the camps carry out “reeducation” to combat terrorism — a story Li has brought forward during recent meetings with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar. Guess we know whom Li will be lunching with.

    6. Rwandan President Paul Kagame

    Nicknamed “the Napoleon of Africa” in a nod to his campaign to seize power in 1994, Paul Kagame has ruled over the land of a thousand hills since. He’s often praised for overseeing what is probably the greatest development success story of modern Africa; he’s also a dictator.

    The former military officer changed the Rwandan constitution to scrap an inconvenient term limit and cement his firm grip on the levers of power, while clamping down on dissent. But despite being accused of overseeing the imprisonment, exile and torture of Rwandan dissidents and journalists, Kagame has managed to stay in the West’s good books — and on the Davos guest list. 

    7. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico

    Slovakia just can’t seem to quit Robert Fico. 

    Forced from office in 2018 by mass protests following the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, Fico rose from the political ashes to become Slovakian prime minister for the fourth time late last year. His Smer party ran a Putin-friendly campaign, pledging to end all military support for Ukraine.

    Slovakian courts are still working through multiple organized crime cases stemming from the last time Smer was in power, involving oligarchs alleged to have profited from state contracts; former top police brass and senior military intelligence officers; and parliamentarians from all three parties in Fico’s new coalition government.

    8. President of Hungary Katalin Novák

    Katalin Novák, elected Hungarian president in 2022, must’ve pulled the short straw: she’s been sent to Davos to fly the flag for the EU’s pariah state. Luckily, the 46-year-old is used to being the odd one out at a shindig: She’s both the first woman and the youngest-ever Hungarian president.

    You’d think Novák, given her background, would be a trail-blazing feminist seeking to inspire women to reach for the stars. But the arch social conservative is a hero of the international anti-abortion, anti-equality, anti-feminism movement.

    It’s her thoughts on the gender pay gap, though, that ought to get attention at the famously male-dominated World Economic Forum: In an infamous video posted back in late 2020, Novák told the sisterhood: “Do not believe that women have to constantly compete with men. Do not believe that every waking moment of our lives must be spent with comparing ourselves to men, and that we should work in at least the same position, for at least the same pay they do.” That’s us told.

    9. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet

    You may be surprised to see Hun Manet on this list: The new, Western-educated Cambodian prime minister has been touted in some circles as a potential modernizer and reformer. 

    But Hun Manet is less a breath of fresh air and a lot more continuation of the same stale story. Having inherited his position from his father, the longtime autocrat Hun Sen, Hun Manet has shown no signs of wanting to reform or modernize Cambodia. While some say it’s too early to tell where he’ll land (given his dad’s still on the scene, along with his Communist loyalists), the fact is: Many hallmarks of autocracy are still present in Cambodia. Repression of the opposition? Check. Dodgy “elections”? Check. Widespread graft and clientelism? Check and check. 

    10. Qatar Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani

    How has a small kingdom of 2.6 million inhabitants in the Persian Gulf managed to play a starring role in so many explosive scandals?

    There were the influence-buying allegations that claimed the scalps of multiple European Union lawmakers. The claims of undisclosed lobbying by two Trump-aligned Republican operatives. The multiple controversies over attempts at sportswashing. Not to mention the questions raised about what officials in the emirate knew ahead of the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas — of which Qatar is the biggest financial backer.

    Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani is the prime minister of Qatar, a country that’s played a starring role in many explosive scandals | Chris J. Ratcliffe/AFP via Getty Images

    You’d think that sort of record would see Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani shunned by the world’s top brass. Nah! Just this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the Qatari leader and told him the U.S. was “deeply grateful for your ongoing leadership in this effort, for the tireless work which you undertook and that continues, to try to free the remaining hostages.” 

    See you on the slopes, Mohammed!

    11. Polish President Andrzej Duda

    When you compare Polish President Andrzej Duda to some of the others on this list, he doesn’t seem to measure up. He’s not a dictator running a violent petro-state, hasn’t invaded any neighbors or even wielded a chainsaw on stage.

    But Duda is yesterday’s man. As the last one standing from Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice party that was swept out of office last year, Duda’s holding on for dear life to his own relevance, doing his best to act as a spoiler against the Donald Tusk-led government by wielding his veto powers and harboring convicted lawmakers. All of which is to say: When you catch up with President Duda at Davos, don’t assume he’s speaking for Poland.

    12. Amin Nasser, CEO of Aramco

    The Saudi Arabian state oil and gas company is Aramco — the world’s biggest energy firm — and Amin Nasser is its boss. If you read Aramco’s press releases, you’d be forgiven for assuming it is also the world’s biggest champion of the green energy transition. Spoiler alert: It’s far from it.

    Exhibit A: Aramco is reportedly a top corporate polluter, with environment nongovernmental organization ClientEarth reporting that it accounts for more than 4 percent of the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1965. Exhibit B: Bloomberg reported in 2021 that it understated its carbon footprint by as much as 50 percent. 

    Nasser, meanwhile, has criticized the idea that climate action should mean countries “either shut down or slow down big time” their fossil fuel production. Say that to Al Gore’s face!

    This article has been updated to reflect the fact Shou Zi Chew is no longer going to attend the World Economic Forum.

    Dionisios Sturis, Peter Snowdon, Suzanne Lynch and Paul de Villepin contributed reporting.

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    Zoya Sheftalovich

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  • Who are the G20’s bad guys now?

    Who are the G20’s bad guys now?

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    NEW DELHI — When world leaders gather at the G20 summit on Saturday morning, the smiles may be more awkward than usual. 

    While China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin won’t be there, a B-list of strongmen with their own damning human rights records will be ready to embarrass the leaders of Western democracy with some stiff handshakes and fixed grins. 

    Some of these international bad guys also have played an increasingly assertive role in negotiations on the Ukraine war — interventions welcomed by the Ukrainian government. However unsavory their domestic records may be, that means they can’t be ignored.

    Take Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. According to U.S. intelligence, he approved the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But last month, he hosted a multinational meeting in Jeddah aimed at kick-starting peace talks. He’s also staying on after the G20 for a state visit in India.

    Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has locked up thousands of political opponents and stifled media freedom, met Putin just this week in an effort to unblock grain shipments through the Red Sea. 

    One official involved in preparations for the summit in Delhi this week joked that the optics will be challenging. “No one wants that photo-op with MBS, let’s face it,” the official said. 

    But overall, Western diplomats are unapologetic about engaging with the bad boys of the G20 — reflecting a growing realization in Western capitals the battle to win minds on the Ukraine war is not working and needs buy-in from the countries beyond the affluent capitals of Europe and North America.

    “I’m not here to issue scorecards,” said U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, when asked this week if President Biden was relaying U.S. concerns about Narendra Modi’s record on religious and press freedoms during his multiple meetings with the Indian leader. 

    Biden is expected to hold a meeting with MBS, with whom he shared an infamous fist-bump last year, a sign to many that all had been forgiven. 

    One European official involved in the preparations praised India for its work behind the scenes in trying to get consensus on an agreement rather than settling on different positions.  

    “If they succeed, it shows that the G20 has a future,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to speak openly due to the sensitive nature of the matter. 

    Ukraine remained the most divisive issue for G20 diplomats trying to hammer out a summit communique, with negotiations continuing late into Friday night.

    U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to hold a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman | Pool photo by Madel Ngan via AFP/Getty Images

    G7 countries — and the EU — are demanding that the principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter on territorial integrity and national sovereignty are reflected in the language.

    Also weighing on minds is the global economy. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz touches down in Delhi just as economic figures showed that industrial production in Europe’s economic powerhouse nose-dived again in July. 

    China is battling a slowing economy and a real-estate crisis. But it’s countries like India that are witnessing the kind of accelerated growth levels that suggest it is on the up.

    In New Delhi, giant posters of a smiling Modi, India’s prime minister, speckle the routes downtown. 

    This is India’s moment in the sun. Modi’s government has used its stint in the chair to show it can play a more assertive role in the global order. 

    India’s self-confidence as it hosts the global shindig signals a deeper geopolitical shift. 

    Three western officials with direct knowledge of the summit preparations said Brazil and South Africa, in particular, were playing a key role behind the scenes in coordination with India to get consensus on a final summit declaration, the holy grail of gatherings such as this. 

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  • How Gulf tensions drove Qatar to seek friends in Brussels

    How Gulf tensions drove Qatar to seek friends in Brussels

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    They’re dazzlingly rich, and they expect to be in charge for a long, long time.

    The monarchs leading Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia might seem from the outside like a trio of like-minded Persian Gulf autocrats. Yet their regional rivalry is intense, and Western capitals have become a key venue in a reputational battle royale.

    “All of these governments … really want to have the largest mindspace among Western governments,” said Jon B. Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

    As the Gulf states seek to wean themselves off the oil that made them rich, they know they’ll need friends to help transform their economies (and modernize their societies).

    “They think it’s important not to be tarred as mere hydrocarbon producers who are ruining the planet,” Alterman added.

    With an erstwhile vice president of the European Parliament in jail and Belgian prosecutors asking to revoke immunity from more MEPs, allegations of cash kickbacks and undue influence by Qatari interests look likely to ensnare more Brussels power players.

    The Qatari government categorically denies any unlawful behavior, saying it “works through institution-to-institution engagement and operates in full compliance with international laws and regulations.”

    Against the background of regional rivalries, that engagement has become increasingly robust. While tensions with Riyadh have eased over the past few years, Qatar’s mutual antagonism with the United Arab Emirates has been particularly severe.

    Qatar’s survival strategy

    Regional rivalries burst beyond the Middle East in 2017 in a standoff that would reshape regional dynamics.

    Until then, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had been essentially frenemies. As members of the Gulf Coordination Council, they’d been working toward building a common market and currency in the region — not so different from the European Union.

    But different responses to the Arab Spring frayed relations to a breaking point.

    The Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network gave a platform to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist party that rode a wave of unrest into power in Egypt and challenged governments throughout the Arab world. And Doha didn’t just offer a bullhorn — it gave the Muslim Brotherhood direct financial backing.

    Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, considered the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist group.

    Along with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE severed diplomatic ties with Doha in June 2017, barring Qatar’s access to airspace and sea routes; Saudi Arabia closed its border, blocking Qatar’s only land crossing.

    Among the demands: close Al Jazeera, end military coordination with Turkey and step away from Iran. Qatar refused — even though it was crunch time for building infrastructure ahead of the 2022 World Cup and 40 percent of Qatar’s food supplies came through Saudi Arabia.

    Fighting what it called an illegal “blockade” became an existential mission for Doha.

    “The only thing Qatar could do was make sure everyone knew Qatar exists and is a nice place,” said MEP Hannah Neumann, chair of the Parliament’s delegation for relations with the Arab Peninsula (DARP).

    “They really stepped up the diplomatic efforts all around the world to also show, ‘We are the good ones,’” said Neumann, of the German Greens.

    Qatar needed Brussels because it had already lost an even bigger ally: Washington. Not only did then-President Donald Trump take the side of Qatar’s rivals in the fight; he also appeared to take credit for the idea of isolating Qatar — even though the U.S.’s largest military base in the region is just southwest of Doha.

    Elsewhere, Qatar had already been working with the London-headquartered consultancy Portland Communications since at least 2014 — as its World Cup hosting coup was becoming a PR nightmare, with stories emerging over bribed FIFA officials and exploited migrant workers.

    Exploding onto the EU scene

    In Brussels, Doha leaned on the head of its EU Mission, Abdulrahman Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, who had moved to Belgium in 2017 from Germany, to step up European relations.

    Within days of the fissure, Al-Khulaifi appeared in meetings at NATO, and within months opened a think tank called the Middle East Dialogue Center to hone Doha’s image as an open promoter of debate (in contrast, it contended, to its neighbors) and pressure the EU to intervene in the Mideast.

    By the next year, he was speaking on panels about combating violent extremism — alongside Dutch and Belgian federal police. By late 2019, Al-Khulaifi hosted the first meeting of embassy’s Qatar-EU friendship group with a “working dinner.”

    “The situation following the blockade has pushed Qatar to establish closer relations outside the context of the regional crisis with, for example, the European Union,” Pier Antonio Panzeri, then chair of the Parliament’s human rights subcommittee, told Euractiv in 2018.

    The following year, Panzeri would attend the Qatari-hosted “International Conference on National, Regional and International Mechanisms to Combat Impunity and Ensure Accountability under International Law,” and heap praise on the country’s human rights record.

    Panzeri is now in a Belgian prison, facing corruption charges; his NGO, Fight Impunity, is under intense scrutiny for being a possible front.

    Neumann said that Qatar’s survival strategy has paid off. “Absolutely, it worked,” she said. “I think it’s fair enough, if they didn’t do it with illegal means.”

    Directly or indirectly, Qatar clocked several big victories during this period, including multiple resolutions in Parliament on human rights in Saudi Arabia and a call to end arms exports to Riyadh in the wake of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Doha also inked a cooperation arrangement with the EU in March 2018, setting the stage for closer ties.

    Frenemies once again

    Since Saudi Arabia and Qatar signed a deal to end the crisis two years ago, Riyadh-Doha relations have generally thawed. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 37, traveled to Qatar in November for the World Cup and embraced Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, 42, while wearing a scarf in the host’s colors.

    However, relations between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — led by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 61 — remain chilly.  

    As the Gulf transforms, the United Arab Emirates “has come to see that role as being a status quo power,” said Alterman. On the part of its neighbor, “Qatar has come to see that role as aligning with forces of change in the region, and that’s created a certain amount of mutual resentment.”

    Qatar’s smaller scale contributes to Doha’s sense of internal security, fueling its openness to engaging with groups that others see as an existential threat.

    Qataris see themselves as “champions of the Davids against the Goliath,” said Andreas Krieg, an assistant professor at King’s College London who has worked in the past as a consultant for the Qatari armed forces. Civil society organizations founded by “a range of different opposition figures, Saudi opposition figures in the West, have been supported financially by Qatar as well,” Krieg added. (Khashoggi, one of the era’s most prominent Saudi opposition figures, had connections to the state-backed Qatar Foundation.) “Hence why Qatar was always seen as sort of a thorn in the side of its neighbors.”

    And while the €1.5 million cash haul confiscated by Belgian federal police looks like an eye-popping sum, it certainly pales in comparison to the amount the Gulf states spend on legal lobbying in Brussels. And that sum, in turn, pales in comparison to what those countries spend in Washington.

    “Brussels isn’t that important,” Krieg said. “If you look at the money that these Gulf countries spend in Washington, these are tens of millions of dollars every year on think tanks, academics … creating their own media outlets, investing strategically into Fox News, investing into massive PR operations.”

    Nonetheless, the EU remains a key target. Abu Dhabi is strengthening its “long-standing partnership” with Brussels on economic and regional security matters “through deep, strategic cooperation with EU institutions and Member States,” said a UAE official, in a statement. 

    “Brussels was always a hub to create a narrative,” said Krieg.

    And right now, each of the region’s power players is deeply motivated to change that narrative.

    Alterman invoked a broad impression of the Gulf countries as “people who have more money than God who want to take the world back to the 7th Century.”

    But that’s wrong, he said. “This is all about shaping the future with remarkably high stakes, profound discomfort about how the world will relate to them over the next 30 to 50 years — and frankly, a series of rulers who see themselves being in power for the next 30 to 50 years.”

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    Sarah Wheaton

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  • Saudi prince’s new title key to dodging lawsuit over killing

    Saudi prince’s new title key to dodging lawsuit over killing

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — It raised eyebrows six weeks ago when Saudi Arabia’s aged king, Salman, named his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as prime minister. The kingdom’s laws designate the king as prime minister. King Salman had to declare a temporary exception to loan out the title, and at the same time made clear he retains key duties.

    But that move reaped dividends Thursday, when the Biden administration declared that Prince Mohammed’s standing as prime minister shielded him from a U.S. lawsuit over what the U.S. intelligence community says was his role in Saudi officials’ 2018 killing of a U.S.-based journalist. A judge will now decide whether Prince Mohammed has immunity.

    National Security Council spokesman John Kirby insisted Friday that the administration’s declaration of immunity for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was purely a “legal determination” that “has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the case itself.”

    Many experts in international law agreed with the administration — but only because of the king’s late September title boost for the crown prince, ahead of a scheduled U.S. decision.

    “It would have been just as remarkable for the United States to deny MBS’s head-of-state immunity after his appointment as Prime Minister as it would have been for the United States to recognize MBS’s head-of-state immunity before his appointment,” William S. Dodge, a professor at the University of California-Davis School of Law, wrote, using the prince’s initials.

    State Department spokesman Vedant Patel gave examples Friday of past instances of the U.S. recognizing immunity for heads of government or state — Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Narendra Modi of India, both in allegations of rights abuses.

    The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington by the fiancée of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi and by a D.C.-based rights group he founded. It accuses the crown prince and about 20 aides, officers and others of plotting and carrying out Khashoggi’s slaying at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

    The killing, condemned by Biden on the campaign trial in 2019 as “flat-out murder” that must have consequences for Saudi rulers, is at the core of a rift between strategic partners, the United States and Saudi Arabia.

    Before and immediately after taking office, Biden vowed to take a stand on Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, as part of a presidency that would be based on rights and values. But Biden has since offered a fist bump and other conciliatory gestures in hopes — disappointed so far — of persuading the crown prince to pump more oil for world markets.

    Biden’s administration argues that Saudi Arabia is too important to the global economy and to regional security to allow the United States to walk away from the decades-old partnership.

    But rights advocates, some senior Democratic lawmakers, and Khashoggi’s newspaper, The Washington Post, on Friday condemned the administration’s move.

    “Jamal died again today,” Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, tweeted.

    Fred Ryan, publisher of the Post, called it a “cynical, calculated effort” to manipulate the law and shield Prince Mohammed. Khashoggi wrote columns for the Post that in his last months criticized the crown prince’s rights abuses.

    “By going along with this scheme, President Biden is turning his back on fundamental principles of press freedom and equality,” Ryan wrote.

    Cengiz and Khashoggi’s rights group, Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, had argued that the crown prince’s late September title change was no more than a maneuver to escape U.S. courts, without legal standing or any change in authority or duties.

    Saudi Arabia has not commented publicly on the administration’s decision. Spokespeople with the Saudi Embassy and Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday.

    Saudi Arabia blames what it says were “rogue” officials for Khashoggi’s killing. It says the prince played no part.

    Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, as opposed to a constitutional one like the United Kingdom, where a prime minister rather than king or queen governs.

    “Pretty pathetic,” Sarah Leah Whitson, head of Khashoggi’s rights group, said Friday of the title change.

    “If anything, it just demonstrated how afraid Mohammed bin Salman was and has been of our lawsuit and actual accountability and actual discovery of his crimes,” Whitson said.

    The Biden administration appeared to dismiss her group’s argument that Prince Mohammed’s recent title change ran counter to Saudi Arabia’s governing law and should be disregarded.

    King Salman has continued making appointments and presiding over meetings of his council since the title change.

    But Prince Mohammed for years has been a key decision-maker and actor in the kingdom, including representing the king abroad.

    Some Western news outlets had presented the temporary transfer of the prime minister title as King Salman — who is in his late 80s — devolving responsibility to Prince Mohammed, who is 37.

    A federal judge had given the U.S. until Thursday to offer an opinion, or not, on the claim by the crown prince that his standing shields him from U.S. courts.

    Rights advocates had hoped up to the moment of filing that the administration would stay silent, offering no opinion on Prince Mohammed’s immunity either way.

    Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, holds that states and their officials are protected from some legal proceedings in other foreign states’ courts.

    Prior criminal and civil cases brought against foreign governments and leaders in which the U.S. has not intervened have generally involved countries with which the U.S. has no diplomatic relations or does not recognize their heads of state or government as legitimate.

    Cases brought against Iran and North Korea seeking damages for deaths or injuries to American citizens are two prominent examples of instances where the executive branch has not weighed in with an opinion about sovereign immunity.

    By contrast, the United States has full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. The State Department stressed Thursday that honoring the principle for other governments’ leaders helps ensure that courts in other countries don’t seek to haul U.S. presidents before them to answer to lawsuits there.

    Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, said the U.S. decision had “absolutely nothing” to do with “tense” U.S.-Saudi relations over Saudi-led oil production cuts, and other matters.

    Biden has been “very, very vocal” about the “brutal, barbaric murder of Khashoggi,” Kirby said.

    But some of Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress expressed disappointment at the administration’s move.

    “Is the Administration casting aside its confidence in its own intelligence community’s judgment?” Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said in a statement. “If the friends and family of Khashoggi are denied a path to accountability in the American court system, where in the world can they go?”

    Whitson, the official for Khashoggi’s rights group, said the lawsuit would continue against the others named in the lawsuit.

    __

    Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.

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  • U.S. moves to shield Saudi crown prince in journalist killing

    U.S. moves to shield Saudi crown prince in journalist killing

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    The Biden administration declared Thursday that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince should be considered immune from a lawsuit over his role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, a turnaround from Joe Biden’s passionate campaign trail denunciations of Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the brutal slaying.

    GettyImages-1052813442.jpg
    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh on October 23, 2018.

    FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images


    The administration said the senior position of the crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler and recently named prime minister as well, should shield him against a suit brought by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group Khashoggi founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.

    The request is non-binding and a judge will ultimately decide whether to grant immunity. But it is bound to anger human rights activists and many U.S. lawmakers, coming as Saudi Arabia has stepped up imprisonment and other retaliation against peaceful critics at home and abroad and has cut oil production, a move seen as undercutting efforts by the U.S. and its allies to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine.

    The State Department on Thursday called the administration’s call to shield the Saudi crown prince from U.S. courts in Khashoggi’s killing “purely a legal determination.”

    The State Department cited what it said was longstanding precedent. Despite its recommendation to the court, the State Department said in its filing late Thursday, it “takes no view on the merits of the present suit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi.”

    Saudi officials killed Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. They are believed to have dismembered him, although his remains have never been found. The U.S. intelligence community concluded Saudi Arabia’s crown prince had approved the killing of the widely known and respected journalist, who had written critically of Prince Mohammed’s harsh ways of silencing of those he considered rivals or critics.

    The Biden administration statement Thursday noted visa restrictions and other penalties that it had meted out to lower-ranking Saudi officials in the death.

    “From the earliest days of this Administration, the United States Government has expressed its grave concerns regarding Saudi agents’ responsibility for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder,” the State Department said. Its statement did not mention the crown prince’s own alleged role.

    Mr. Biden as a candidate vowed to make a “pariah” out of Saudi rulers over the 2018 killing of Khashoggi.

    “I think it was a flat-out murder,” Biden said in a 2019 CNN town hall, as a candidate. “And I think we should have nailed it as that. I publicly said at the time we should treat it that way and there should be consequences relating to how we deal with those — that power.”

    But Mr. Biden as president has sought to ease tensions with the kingdom, including bumping fists with Prince Mohammed on a July trip to the kingdom, as the U.S. works to persuade Saudi Arabia to undo a series of cuts in oil production.

    Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and DAWN sued the crown prince, his top aides and others in Washington federal court over their alleged roles in Khashoggi’s killing. Saudi Arabia says the prince had no direct role in the slaying.

    “It’s beyond ironic that President Biden has singlehandedly assured MBS can escape accountability when it was President Biden who promised the American people he would do everything to hold him accountable,” the head of DAWN, Sarah Leah Whitson, said in a statement, using the prince’s acronym.

    Mr. Biden in February 2021 had ruled out the U.S. government imposing punishment on Prince Mohammed himself in the killing of Khashoggi, a resident of the Washington area. Mr. Biden, speaking after he authorized release of a declassified version of the intelligence community’s findings on Prince Mohammed’s role in the killing, argued at the time there was no precedent for the U.S. to move against the leader of a strategic partner.

    The U.S. military long has safeguarded Saudi Arabia from external enemies, in exchange for Saudi Arabia keeping global oil markets afloat.

    “It’s impossible to read the Biden administration’s move today as anything more than a capitulation to Saudi pressure tactics, including slashing oil output to twist our arms to recognize MBS’s fake immunity ploy,” Whitson said.

    A federal judge in Washington had given the U.S. government until midnight Thursday to express an opinion on the claim by the crown prince’s lawyers that Prince Mohammed’s high official standing renders him legally immune in the case.

    The Biden administration also had the option of not stating an opinion either way.

    Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, holds that states and their officials are protected from some legal proceedings in other foreign states’ domestic courts.

    Upholding the concept of “sovereign immunity” helps ensure that American leaders in turn don’t have to worry about being hauled into foreign courts to face lawsuits in other countries, the State Department said.

    Human rights advocates had argued that the Biden administration would embolden Prince Mohammed and other authoritarian leaders around the world in more rights abuses if it supported the crown prince’s claim that his high office shielded him from prosecution.

    Prince Mohammed serves as Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler in the stead of his aged father, King Salman. The Saudi king in September also temporarily transferred his title of prime minister — a title normally held by the Saudi monarch — to Prince Mohammed. Critics called it a bid to strengthen Mohammed’s immunity claim.

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  • U.S. Moves To Shield Saudi Crown Prince In Jamal Khashoggi’s Killing

    U.S. Moves To Shield Saudi Crown Prince In Jamal Khashoggi’s Killing

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration declared Thursday that the high office held by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince should shield him from lawsuits for his role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, a turnaround from Joe Biden’s passionate campaign trail denunciations of Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the brutal slaying.

    The administration said the prince’s official standing should give him immunity in the lawsuit filed by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group he founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.

    The request is non-binding and a judge will ultimately decide whether to grant immunity. But it is bound to anger human rights activists and many U.S. lawmakers, coming as Saudi Arabia has stepped up imprisonment and other retaliation against peaceful critics at home and abroad and has cut oil production, a move seen as undercutting efforts by the U.S. and its allies to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine.

    The State Department on Thursday called the administration’s decision to try to protect the Saudi crown prince from U.S. courts in Khashoggi’s killing “purely a legal determination.”

    And despite backing up the crown prince in his bid to block the lawsuit against him, the State Department “takes no view on the merits of the present suit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” the administration’s court filing late Thursday said.

    Saudi officials killed Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. They are believed to have dismembered him, although his remains have never been found. The U.S. intelligence community concluded Saudi Arabia’s crown prince had approved the killing of the widely known and respected journalist, who had written critically of Prince Mohammed’s harsh ways of silencing of those he considered rivals or critics.

    The Biden administration statement Thursday noted visa restrictions and other penalties that it had meted out to lower-ranking Saudi officials in the death.

    “From the earliest days of this Administration, the United States Government has expressed its grave concerns regarding Saudi agents’ responsibility for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder,” the State Department said. Its statement did not mention the crown prince’s own alleged role.

    Hatice Cengiz, slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancee, attends a press conference calling for the Trump administration to release details about his killing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 3, 2020. – US lawmakers vowed Tuesday to force the release of an intelligence report on the killing of Saudi dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi, accusing President Donald Trump of blocking it to protect the kingdom. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

    SAUL LOEB via Getty Images

    Biden as a candidate vowed to make a “pariah” out of Saudi rulers over the 2018 killing of Khashoggi.

    “I think it was a flat-out murder,” Biden said in a 2019 CNN town hall, as a candidate. “And I think we should have nailed it as that. I publicly said at the time we should treat it that way and there should be consequences relating to how we deal with those — that power.”

    But Biden as president has sought to ease tensions with the kingdom, including bumping fists with Prince Mohammed on a July trip to the kingdom, as the U.S. works to persuade Saudi Arabia to undo a series of cuts in oil production.

    Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and DAWN sued the crown prince, his top aides and others in Washington federal court over their alleged roles in Khashoggi’s killing. Saudi Arabia says the prince had no direct role in the slaying.

    “It’s beyond ironic that President Biden has singlehandedly assured MBS can escape accountability when it was President Biden who promised the American people he would do everything to hold him accountable,” the head of DAWN, Sarah Leah Whitson, said in a statement, using the prince’s acronym.

    Biden in February 2021 had ruled out the U.S. government imposing punishment on Prince Mohammed himself in the killing of Khashoggi, a resident of the Washington area. Biden, speaking after he authorized release of a declassified version of the intelligence community’s findings on Prince Mohammed’s role in the killing, argued at the time there was no precedent for the U.S. to move against the leader of a strategic partner.

    The U.S. military long has safeguarded Saudi Arabia from external enemies, in exchange for Saudi Arabia keeping global oil markets afloat.

    “It’s impossible to read the Biden administration’s move today as anything more than a capitulation to Saudi pressure tactics, including slashing oil output to twist our arms to recognize MBS’s fake immunity ploy,” Whitson said.

    ISTANBUL, TURKEY - OCTOBER 08: A man holds a poster of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a protest organized by members of the Turkish-Arabic Media Association at the entrance to Saudi Arabia's consulate on October 8, 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey. Fears are growing over the fate of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi after Turkish officials said they believe he was murdered inside the Saudi consulate. Saudi consulate officials have said that missing writer and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi went missing after leaving the consulate, however the statement directly contradicts other sources including Turkish officials. Jamal Khashoggi a Saudi writer critical of the Kingdom and a contributor to the Washington Post was living in self-imposed exile in the U.S. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
    ISTANBUL, TURKEY – OCTOBER 08: A man holds a poster of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a protest organized by members of the Turkish-Arabic Media Association at the entrance to Saudi Arabia’s consulate on October 8, 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey. Fears are growing over the fate of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi after Turkish officials said they believe he was murdered inside the Saudi consulate. Saudi consulate officials have said that missing writer and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi went missing after leaving the consulate, however the statement directly contradicts other sources including Turkish officials. Jamal Khashoggi a Saudi writer critical of the Kingdom and a contributor to the Washington Post was living in self-imposed exile in the U.S. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

    Chris McGrath via Getty Images

    A federal judge in Washington had given the U.S. government until midnight Thursday to express an opinion on the claim by the crown prince’s lawyers that Prince Mohammed’s high official standing renders him legally immune in the case.

    The Biden administration also had the option of not stating an opinion either way.

    Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, holds that states and their officials are protected from some legal proceedings in other foreign states’ domestic courts.

    Upholding the concept of “sovereign immunity” helps ensure that American leaders in turn don’t have to worry about being hauled into foreign courts to face lawsuits in other countries, the State Department said.

    Human rights advocates had argued that the Biden administration would embolden Prince Mohammed and other authoritarian leaders around the world in more rights abuses if it supported the crown prince’s claim that his high office shielded him from prosecution.

    Prince Mohammed serves as Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler in the stead of his aged father, King Salman. The Saudi king in September also temporarily transferred his title of prime minister — a title normally held by the Saudi monarch — to Prince Mohammed. Critics called it a bid to strengthen Mohammed’s immunity claim.

    Eric Tucker and Aamer Madhani contributed.

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  • Jared Kushner Had a Friendly Little Reunion With His Saudi Pals (the Ones Who Gave Him a $2 Billion Check)

    Jared Kushner Had a Friendly Little Reunion With His Saudi Pals (the Ones Who Gave Him a $2 Billion Check)

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    As you might have heard, the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia is extremely strained at the moment, on account of an October 5 oil production cut that not only benefited Russia financially, but also increased already-rising energy costs for Americans. Yet one person’s friendship with the kingdom has never been better, and it probably will not surprise you to hear that that person is former first son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had a happy little reunion with his Saudi pals this week.

    On Tuesday, Kushner showed up for the first day of a three-day conference nicknamed Davos in the Desert, which is taking place in Riyadh and is put on by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which appeared to roll out the red carpet for the Boy Prince of New Jersey:

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    If the Public Investment Fund sounds familiar to you, that might be because it’s the organization that wrote Kushner’s newly formed private-equity firm a $2 billion check last year. That made the news not just because $2 billion is a very large sum of money, but because the fund’s board—which happens to be led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—reportedly ignored the concerns of the fund’s due diligence panel, which concluded that no one in their right mind would give the former first son-in-law a dime. Among other things, the panel noted that management was “inexperience[d],” that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk,” that Kushner’s fee seemed “excessive,” and that the firm’s operations were “unsatisfactory in all aspects.”

    That the fund gave Kushner $2 billion to invest anyway—and at least $25 million to pocket regardless of performance—led many to conclude that the check was a thank-you to Kushner for his defense of MBS over the murder of Saudi dissident and US resident Jamal Khashoggi. (As a reminder, Kushner reportedly urged Donald Trump to support the prince, arguing that the whole situation—wherein a man was kidnapped, killed, and dismembered via bone saw—would blow over. Later, he defended MBS in his memoir, writing that he chose to set aside his concerns about the grisly murder and focus on all the supposedly positive things the guy had done.) While Kushner has insisted that his going to bat for bin Salman had absolutely nothing to do with the large some of money he subsequently received, others are not convinced.

    In June, the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the $2 billion investment. As Rep. Carolyn Maloney wrote in a letter to Kushner that month: “The Committee is concerned by your decision to solicit billions of dollars from the Saudi government immediately following your significant involvement in shaping U.S.-Saudi relations.” She added that, among other things, his close ties with MBS “create the appearance of a quid pro quo for your foreign policy work during the Trump Administration.”

    The US Treasury, Commerce, and State departments all previously told The New York Times that their top officials would not be attending Davos in the Desert. While Kushner is not the only American businessman to make the trip—the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Blackstone are all there, as is the founder of Bridgewater Associates—he’s definitely the only one who personally helped bin Salman get out of an extremely sticky situation, and might have been rewarded for doing so.

    In other Saudi news, Kushner’s father-in-law hosted a heavily criticized Saudi-funded tournament at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, over the summer. In response to outrage from families of 9/11 victims, he falsely and bizarrely claimed that “nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11.” Like father like son-in-law!

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    Bess Levin

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  • Saudis sentence U.S. citizen to 16 years in prison over tweets, his family says

    Saudis sentence U.S. citizen to 16 years in prison over tweets, his family says

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    An American citizen has been arrested in Saudi Arabia, tortured and sentenced to 16 years in prison over tweets he sent while in the United States, his son said Tuesday.

    Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a 72-year-old retired project manager living in Florida, was arrested last November while visiting family in the kingdom and was sentenced earlier this month, his son Ibrahim told The Associated Press, confirming details that were first reported by the Washington Post. Almadi is a citizen of both Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

    There was no immediate comment from Saudi officials.

    Saudi Arabia Rights
    In this photo provided by Ibrahim Almadi, Saad Ibrahim Almadi sits in a restaurant in an unidentified place, in the United States, on August 2021. Almadi, 72, who is a citizen of both Saudi Arabia and the U.S., was arrested in Saudi Arabia last November and was recently sentenced to 16 years in prison over tweets critical of the Saudi government. 

    Ibrahim Almadi / AP


    State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel, speaking to reporters in Washington, confirmed Almadi’s detention Tuesday.

    “We have consistently and intensively raised our concerns regarding the case at senior levels of the Saudi government, both through channels in Riyadh and Washington, D.C., as well and we will continue to do so,” he said. “We have raised this with members of the Saudi government as recently as yesterday.”

    It appeared to be the latest in a series of recent cases in which Saudis received long jail sentences for social media posts critical of the government.

    Saudi authorities have tightened their crackdown on dissent following the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is seeking to open up and transform the ultraconservative kingdom but has adopted a hard line toward any criticism.

    A Saudi court recently sentenced a woman to 45 years in prison for allegedly damaging the country through her social media activity. A Saudi doctoral student at Leeds University in England was sentenced to 34 years for spreading “rumors” and retweeting dissidents, a case that drew international outrage.

    Ibrahim says his father was detained over 14 “mild tweets” sent over the past seven years, mostly criticizing government policies and alleged corruption. He says his father was not an activist but a private citizen expressing his opinion while in the U.S., where freedom of speech is a constitutional right.

    President Joe Biden traveled to the oil-rich kingdom in July for a meeting with Prince Mohammed, in which he said he confronted him about human rights. Their meeting — and a widely criticized fist-bump — marked a sharp turnaround from Biden’s earlier vow to make the kingdom a “pariah” over the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

    Ibrahim said his father was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Oct. 3 on charges of supporting terrorism. The father was also charged with failing to report terrorism, over tweets that Ibrahim had posted.

    His father was also slapped with a 16-year travel ban. If the sentence is carried out, the 72-year-old would be 87 upon his release and barred from returning home to the U.S. unless he reaches the age of 104.

    Ibrahim said Saudi authorities warned his family to stay quiet about the case and to not involve the U.S. government. He said his father was tortured after the family contacted the State Department in March.

    Ibrahim also accused the State Department of neglecting his father’s case by not declaring him a “wrongfully detained” American, which would elevate his file.

    “They manipulated me. They told me to stay quiet so they can get him out,” Ibrahim said, explaining his decision to go public this week. “I am not willing to take a gamble on the Department of State anymore.”

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  • Family: Saudis sentence US citizen to 16 years over tweets

    Family: Saudis sentence US citizen to 16 years over tweets

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An American citizen has been arrested in Saudi Arabia, tortured and sentenced to 16 years in prison over tweets he sent while in the United States, his son said Tuesday.

    Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a 72-year-old retired project manager living in Florida, was arrested last November while visiting family in the kingdom and was sentenced earlier this month, his son Ibrahim told The Associated Press, confirming details that were first reported by the Washington Post. Almadi is a citizen of both Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

    There was no immediate comment from Saudi officials.

    State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel, speaking to reporters in Washington, confirmed Almadi’s detention Tuesday.

    “We have consistently and intensively raised our concerns regarding the case at senior levels of the Saudi government, both through channels in Riyadh and Washington DC as well and we will continue to do so,” he said. “We have raised this with members of the Saudi government as recently as yesterday.”

    It appeared to be the latest in a series of recent cases in which Saudis received long jail sentences for social media posts critical of the government.

    Saudi authorities have tightened their crackdown on dissent following the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is seeking to open up and transform the ultraconservative kingdom but has adopted a hard line toward any criticism.

    A Saudi court recently sentenced a woman to 45 years in prison for allegedly damaging the country through her social media activity. A Saudi doctoral student at Leeds University in England was sentenced to 34 years for spreading “rumors” and retweeting dissidents, a case that drew international outrage.

    Ibrahim says his father was detained over 14 “mild tweets” sent over the past seven years, mostly criticizing government policies and alleged corruption. He says his father was not an activist but a private citizen expressing his opinion while in the U.S., where freedom of speech is a constitutional right.

    President Joe Biden traveled to the oil-rich kingdom in July for a meeting with Prince Mohammed, in which he said he confronted him about human rights. Their meeting — and a widely criticized fist-bump — marked a sharp turnaround from Biden’s earlier vow to make the kingdom a “pariah” over the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

    Ibrahim said his father was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Oct. 3 on charges of supporting terrorism. The father was also charged with failing to report terrorism, over tweets that Ibrahim had posted.

    His father was also slapped with a 16-year travel ban. If the sentence is carried out, the 72-year-old would be 87 upon his release and barred from returning home to the U.S. unless he reaches the age of 104.

    Ibrahim said Saudi authorities warned his family to stay quiet about the case and to not involve the U.S. government. He said his father was tortured after the family contacted the State Department in March.

    Ibrahim also accused the State Department of neglecting his father’s case by not declaring him a “wrongfully detained” American, which would elevate his file.

    “They manipulated me. They told me to stay quiet so they can get him out,” Ibrahim said, explaining his decision to go public this week. “I am not willing to take a gamble on the Department of State anymore.”

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  • Saudis say US sought 1 month delay of OPEC+ production cuts

    Saudis say US sought 1 month delay of OPEC+ production cuts

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia said Thursday that the U.S. had urged it to postpone a decision by OPEC and its allies — including Russia — to cut oil production by a month. Such a delay could have helped reduce the risk of a spike in gas prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections next month.

    A statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry didn’t specifically mention the Nov. 8 elections in which U.S. President Joe Biden is trying to maintain his narrow Democratic majority in Congress. However, it stated that the U.S. “suggested” the cuts be delayed by a month. In the end, OPEC announced the cuts at its Oct. 5 meeting in Vienna.

    Holding off on the cuts would have likely delayed any rise in gas prices until after the elections.

    Rising oil prices — and by extension higher gasoline prices — have been a key driver of inflation in the U.S. and around the world, worsening global economic woes as Russia’s months-long war on Ukraine also has disrupted global food supplies. For Biden, gasoline prices creeping up could affect voters. He and many lawmakers have warned that America’s longtime security-based relationship with the kingdom could be reconsidered.

    The decision by the Saudi Foreign Ministry to release a rare, lengthy statement showed how tense relations between the two countries have become.

    The White House pushed back on Thursday, rejecting the idea that the requested delay was related to the U.S. elections and instead linking it to economic considerations and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

    “We presented Saudi Arabia with analysis to show that there was no market basis to cut production targets, and that they could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting to see how things developed,” said John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council.

    “Other OPEC nations communicated to us privately that they also disagreed with the Saudi decision, but felt coerced to support Saudi’s direction,” he added.

    U.S.-Saudi ties have been fraught since the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which Washington believes came on the orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Meanwhile, higher energy prices provide a weapon Russia can use against the West, which has been arming and supporting Ukraine.

    The statement by the Saudi Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the kingdom had been talking to the U.S. about postponing OPEC+’s 2 million barrel cut announced last week.

    “The government of the kingdom clarified through its continuous consultation with the U.S. administration that all economic analyses indicate that postponing the OPEC+ decision for a month, according to what has been suggested, would have had negative economic consequences,” the ministry said in its statement.

    The ministry’s statement confirmed details from a Wall Street Journal article this week that quoted unnamed Saudi officials saying the U.S. sought to delay the OPEC+ production cut until just before the midterm elections. The Journal quoted Saudi officials as describing the move as a political gambit by Biden ahead of the vote.

    The kingdom also criticized attempts to link its decision to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

    “The kingdom stresses that while it strives to preserve the strength of its relations with all friendly countries, it affirms its rejection of any dictates, actions, or efforts to distort its noble objectives to protect the global economy from oil market volatility,” it said. “Resolving economic challenges requires the establishment of a non-politicized constructive dialogue, and to wisely and rationally consider what serves the interests of all countries.”

    Both Saudi Arabia and the neighboring United Arab Emirates, key producers in OPEC, voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution Wednesday to condemn Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian regions and demand its immediate reversal.

    Once muscular enough to grind the U.S. to a halt with its 1970s oil embargo, OPEC needed non-members like Russia to push through a production cut in 2016 after prices crashed below $30 a barrel amid rising American production. The 2016 agreement gave birth to the so-called OPEC+, which joined the cartel in cutting production to help stimulate prices.

    The coronavirus pandemic briefly saw oil prices go into negative territory before air travel and economic activity rebounded following lockdowns around the world. Benchmark Brent crude sat over $92 a barrel early Wednesday, but oil-producing nations are worried prices could sharply fall amid efforts to combat inflation.

    Biden, who famously called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” during his 2020 election campaign, traveled to the kingdom in July and fist-bumped Prince Mohammed before a meeting. Despite the outreach, the kingdom has been supportive of keeping oil prices high in order to fund Prince Mohammed’s aspirations, including his planned $500 billion futuristic desert city project called Neom.

    On Tuesday, Biden warned of repercussions for Saudi Arabia over the OPEC+ decision.

    “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done, with Russia,” Biden said. “I’m not going to get into what I’d consider and what I have in mind. But there will be — there will be consequences.”

    ———

    Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

    ———

    Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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  • Germany secures more gas shipments as Scholz visits Gulf

    Germany secures more gas shipments as Scholz visits Gulf

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    BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz planted a tree at a mangrove park in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, a token nod to environmentalism during a two-day visit to the Gulf region focused mainly on securing new fossil fuel supplies and forging fresh alliances against Russia.

    Germany is trying to wean itself off energy imports from Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine, while avoiding an energy shortage in the coming winter months.

    To do so, the German government has sought out new natural gas suppliers while also installing terminals to bring the fuel into the country by ship.

    After visiting the Jubail Mangrove Park in Abu Dhabi, Scholz met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to sign an accord on energy cooperation and discuss the country’s hosting of next year’s U.N. climate talks.

    German utility company RWE announced Sunday that it will receive a first shipment of liquefied natural gas from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company this year. In a separate deal, RWE will partner with UAE-based Masdar to explore further offshore wind energy projects, the company said.

    From Abu Dhabi Scholz flew to Qatar to meet the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and discuss bilateral relations, regional issues such as tensions with Iran and the Gulf nation’s upcoming hosting of soccer’s World Cup.

    Speaking to reporters in Doha, Scholz acknowledged that there had been progress on improving conditions for foreign workers involved in the construction of the venues for the tournament, but left open whether he would attend any of the games himself.

    The German leader’s first stop Saturday was Saudi Arabia, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

    Human rights groups criticized the meeting because of Prince Mohammed’s alleged involvement in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

    Scholz told reporters after the meeting that he had discussed “all the questions around civil and human rights” with the prince, but declined to elaborate.

    German officials noted ahead of the trip that Scholz is one of several Western leaders to meet with the Saudi crown prince in recent months, including U.S. President Joe Biden, former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron.

    German officials said all energy agreements will take into account the country’s plans to become carbon neutral by 2045, requiring a shift from natural gas to hydrogen produced with renewable energy in the coming decades.

    Saudi Arabia, which has vast regions suitable for cheap solar power generation, is seen as a particularly suitable supplier of hydrogen, they said.

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