Mark Mazzetti Analyzes Allegations Against Saudi Leadership

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: What is your reaction to what he’s told us and how important is it that this has been filed in the United States, and as he said, let’s come out into the public and resolve it like men?

MARK MAZZETTI, NEW YORK TIMES INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think stepping back a second and realizing the significance of the Jabri family coming forward publicly with these allegations and also filing them in court, it’s extraordinary that, as we said in our story today, it’s really the first time in the name of Saad Aljabri, you have a former top Saudi official publicly making these accusations against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The fact it was filed in an American court seems to be — the purpose seems to be because there are some statutes in the books in the United States, the Torture Victim Protection Act, the Alien Tort Statute that do give some degree of standing for foreigners to bring similar — bring such charges, even though Dr. Aljabri is, of course, Saudi and he’s living in Canada, they saw a reason to go to U.S. federal court for this. Let’s be frank also, having a lawsuit in American federal court does come with it the sort of promotional benefit of having press to air out these charges. There’s more of an impact to be filed in an American court. As you can see, we and so many others wrote about the charges. So, as some legal experts I spoke to said, you know, it may be doubtful that this case might actually proceed in court, but its intended, in fact, might also be just to raise awareness, to get these issues, to air out these issues and these allegations.

AMANPOUR: So, before I get to the U.S. point, and we’ve obviously read out so many responses from U.S. officials testifying for, you know, Saad Aljabri’s character, his relationship with the United States. Before I get to that, how do you think Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, under a huge amount of international pressure, how do you think he is going to react? Where do you see this leading?

MAZZETTI: Well, it will be interesting to see how the Saudi government responds. You know, obviously, they were hoping to get past the Jamal Khashoggi horror and the role of the Saudi government in it, and Crown Prince Mohammed clearly has trying to move past it and, you know, go past this period of really being an international pariah because of that. Having this now come up does create this atmosphere again.