Biden News Conference Today: The despots' great fear of Joe Biden

Biden News Conference Today: The despots' great fear of Joe Biden

 

Autocrats are concerned about persecution: Putin secures lifelong immunity. The Saudi Crown Prince begs Trump for help.

 

After working as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, Brussels, and Warsaw, the man from Hamburg is now the international head of the Handelsblatt.  He is particularly interested in Eastern Europe, the Arab world, and Iran.

 

Weeks before the new US president takes office on January 20, autocrats around the world are afraid of the new man in the White House. For example, the powerful and controversial Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to protect Donald Trump from possible arrest in the USA during the last days of his term in office.

 

MBS, as the 35-year-old heir to the throne, is known, is trying to gain immunity before travelling on the first visit to Joe Biden. Because in the USA he had so far had a protective hand through the close connection to Trump and his son-in-law and Middle East representative Jared Kushner.

 

Saudi Arabia has agreed on billion-dollar military deals with Trump. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF, which is chaired by the Crown Prince as chairman, has invested billions, primarily in US tech companies.

 

But in the USA there is also a particular focus on MbS: The opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, was a columnist for the Washington Post. And in the USA a lawsuit against MbS is pending by Saad al-Jabri, the former advisor to the Saudi interior minister, Mohammed bin Nayef, who had been dumped by the Crown Prince.

 

Biden News Conference Today - For many years he was the central point of contact for American and other Western secret services in the fight against Islamist terrorism. According to the lawsuit, MbS is said to have tried to have al-Jabri murdered after Kashoggi. Previously, by kidnapping the children, he is said to have urged him to come back from exile to his homeland in the desert.

 

Al-Jabri was dangerous for MbS as he is a close follower of the deposed Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef and knows all the secrets of the royal court.

 

The lawsuit filed in August is based on a US law to protect victims of torture. Biden News - It allows civil lawsuits in the United States against foreign government employees guilty of torture or extrajudicial executions.

 

Putin secures lifelong political immunity

 

At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that gives all former presidents political immunity for the rest of their lives. Also, they should be guaranteed a seat on the Federation Council, the Russian House of Lords, which also protects against criminal investigations.

 

That would apply to Putin personally, whose term of office runs until 2024. And it applies to the interim head of state and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, who was massively accused of corruption by Russia's opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Putin was also repeatedly accused of having massively enriched himself and raking holdings in Russian companies.

The so-called Magnitsky Act came into force in 2012 under Joe Biden and his then-boss Barack Obama. Biden News Conference Today - The law, named after the anti-corruption lawyer Sergej Magnitsky, who died in Russian custody, imposes sanctions on foreign state employees.

 

Entry bans and bank account seizures come into effect when officials torture or kill people - as in the case of the courageous Moscow lawyer. In extreme cases, the Magnitsky Act could also be used against top political figures. So far only US judicial officers have been hit.