U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden on Thursday muscled through a bill that could force the Trump administration to publicly disclose what it knows about the Saudi Arabian government’s suspected role in spiriting its citizens out of the United States to escape prosecution for serious crimes.
The Oregon Democrat won approval for his new measure, the Saudi Fugitives Declassification Act, after delivering an impassioned 13-minute speech on the Senate floor. It passed by unanimous consent, a procedural move that can expedite legislation and does not require an up-or-down vote.
The bill would require the director of the FBI, in coordination with the nation’s intelligence director, to declassify all information related to how the Saudi government may have helped accused criminals leave the U.S.Its passage marks a promising opening for Wyden, who has spent months pushing federal agencies and needling administration officials for information about the cases, only to be shut down time and again.
“The American people deserve answers. These are not academic matters, and this is not about a series of victimless crimes,” Wyden said. “This is about manslaughter, rape and more. This is about real people, real families, who have suffered immeasurable pain.”
Wyden’s measure comes nearly a year after an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found multiple cases where Saudi students studying around the U.S. vanished while facing serious criminal charges.
Since December, the news organization revealed criminal cases involving at least seven Saudi nationals who disappeared from Oregon before they faced trial or completed their jail sentence on charges ranging from rape to manslaughter, including those who had surrendered their passports to authorities.The investigation also found similar cases in at least seven other states — Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin — and Canada, bringing the total number of known Saudi suspects who have escaped to 25.
Nearly three-quarters of the cases involve charges of rape or sexual assault. Most of the victims have been college-age women.
In April, a story co-published by The Oregonian/OregonLive and ProPublica showed how the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other agencies have been aware of Saudi officials helping their country’s citizens flee since at least 2008 yet never intervened.
The United States and Saudi Arabia don’t share an extradition treaty. That makes the return of any Saudi suspect who has left the U.S. unlikely, if not impossible, without diplomatic or political pressure.
Despite documented cases around the country, Wyden and fellow U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, have been the only lawmakers in Washington to publicly raise concerns over the Saudi disappearances and demand action from the Trump administration.
The pair earlier this year co-sponsored bills that would have required the federal government to investigate the disappearances and to impose sanctions against any Saudi diplomat or official found to have assisted Saudi fugitives escape prosecution. The measures never advanced in the Senate.
In public and private, Wyden has also repeatedly pressed the heads of federal agencies for answers, including the director of the FBI, the secretary of state and the attorney general. Those agencies and their leaders, Wyden insisted once again Thursday, have not been forthcoming with information, nor do they appear interested in probing the issue further.
“I have written the Department of Justice. I have written the State Department. I have written to Customs and Border Protection. I have written to the U.S. Marshals Service. I have written to the Department of Homeland Security,” Wyden said. “As far as I could tell, I’d have gotten better answers from the Saudi Royal family themselves.”
Wyden also used his floor speech to highlight the case of Fallon Smart, a Portland teen struck and killed along Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard in 2016. The suspect, 21-year-old Portland Community College student Abulrahman Sameer Noorah, vanished weeks before his manslaughter trial and later resurfaced in Saudi Arabia.
Officials with Homeland Security and the Marshals Service told The Oregonian/OregonLive last year they believe Noorah left his Southeast Portland neighborhood in a black SUV and later used an illicit passport and private plane — likely provided by the Saudi government — to flee the country.
The wealthy Persian Gulf kingdom had previously retained private defense attorneys to work on Noorah’s case and cut a $100,000 check to provide him bail, according to court records and prosecutors. Authorities placed him on pre-trial supervision and seized his passport.
“I have five children,” Wyden said. “I cannot imagine the grief I would feel if one of them was taken from me and the person responsible somehow managed to evade the justice system. It’s almost impossible to comprehend the anger and frustration and helplessness that any parent would feel in a situation like this.”
Chris Larsen, an attorney for Fallon Smart’s family, thanked the senator for his continued work on the issue.
“We hope the House will follow suit,” Larsen said in a statement. “Those that helped Mr. Noorah and other Saudi nationals flee from justice should be exposed and held accountable.”
The Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to a request for comment for this story. It has previously said that, as a policy, the Saudi government will cover the cost of bail for any citizen jailed in the U.S. who asks for assistance.
The kingdom also has denied playing any role in helping Saudi citizens escape prosecution in the U.S.
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