Nearly One Year on, French Prosecutor is yet to Appoint an Investigative Judge in the Criminal Case Filed by DAWN Against MBS
(Washington, DC, June 14, 2023) – One year since DAWN filed its universal jurisdiction complaint, French authorities have failed to appoint an investigative judge to examine Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman's (MBS) involvement in the torture and killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, said Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).
MBS is currently in France and scheduled to meet with French President Emanuelle Macron in Paris on June 16.
"The failure of France to appoint an investigative judge to examine DAWN's complaint for MBS's murder of Jamal Khashoggi suggests that French authorities are deliberately dragging their feet and politicizing what should be a straightforward judicial procedure," said Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN's Executive Director. "While President Macron is lecturing other countries about international law and scolding them for harming human rights by selling weapons to Russia, he's only been too eager to wine and dine the murderous tyrant of Saudi Arabia in a mad rush to sell him as many weapons as possible."
On July 28, 2022, DAWN filed a 42-page complaint before the Paris tribunal arguing that MBS is an accomplice to the torture, enforced disappearance, and murder of Khasoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. As of today, the French prosecutor has not assigned an investigative judge to the case for it to move forward.
DAWN's complaint, also supported by the Open Society Justice Initiative and co-filed by TRIAL International, stated that MBS has no immunity from prosecution because as crown prince, he is not the head of state. The United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, found in her June 2019 report that there was credible evidence warranting the investigation of MBS's involvement in Khashogg's murder. U.S. intelligence reports concluded that MBS dispatched the 15-man hit squad responsible for the murder.
French law recognizes "universal jurisdiction" for the crimes of torture and enforced disappearances. This means that judicial authorities are empowered – and in the case of torture and enforced disappearances, required – to investigate and prosecute these crimes no matter where they were committed, regardless of the suspects' nationality or their victims, as long as the suspect is on French territory.
France is one of the only remaining venues for justice for Jamal Khashoggi, as the Saudi authorities concluded a sham trial in September 2020 that did not even consider investigating MBS's involvement. Although the Saudi trial found eight Saudi officials guilty, it ended without revealing the fate of Khashoggi's remains. The Turkish authorities settled their own investigation into Khashoggi's murder in 2021 in return for an improved political and economic relationship with Saudi Arabia. In 2022, the Biden administration granted immunity to MBS in the civil lawsuit brought against MBS in the United States by DAWN and Khashoggi's finance, Hatice Cengiz. MBS was awarded the title of "prime minister" by his father the Saudi King to protect him from prosecution just a few days before the Biden administration's deadline to provide to the court its opinion on the question of MBS's immunity and despite the fact that Article 56 of Saudi Arabia's Basic Law of Governance clearly states that the King serves as prime minister.
