RIYADH, 09 December, 2020, (TON): Lawyers for Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman on Monday evening filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against him, saying there is no evidence to support claims he ordered a hit squad to assassinate a former Saudi intelligence official and that he is immune from charges in a US court.

The 106-page lawsuit was filed in August on behalf of Saad al-Jabri, former aide to former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a former heir to the Saudi throne.

Jabri claims that Saudi crown prince organised an assassination attempt against al-Jabri using the so-called “Tiger” hit squad.

The lawsuit says the alleged attempt took place 13 days after members of the Tiger squad were involved in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.

Michael Kellogg, a lawyer representing Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, said in the 87-page motion to dismiss that Jabri “can say whatever he wants to the newspapers. But this case does not belong in federal court”.

The filing claims that because al-Jabri is a dual Saudi-Maltese citizen living in Canada, where the alleged attempt on his life took place, he has no right to bring the case before a US court.

According to the motion, “even taking Aljabri’s allegations as true, he does not and cannot allege that the supposed attempt on his life in Canada was caused by any conduct in the United States.”

The suit was filed in the US under the Alien Tort statute and the 1991 Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows for complaints against foreign nationals.

Furthermore, Kellogg wrote that Saudi Crown Prince enjoys immunity from cases against him, saying “immunity of foreign officials from suit in the US is governed by the doctrine of common-law foreign sovereign immunity”.

Sovereign immunity is a legal doctrine that holds sovereign states and heads of state as immune from prosecution.