Colorado Police Investigate Saudi Angle in State Official's Murder

 

 

Colorado Police Investigate Saudi Angle in State Official's Murder

 

by IPT News  .  Mar 21, 2013 at 10:24 am

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3952/colorado-police-investigate-saudi-angle-in-state

 

 

This post has been updated to correct a reference to the Colorado Attorney

General's trip to Saudi Arabia.

 

Refusal to send a convicted sex offender to his native Saudi Arabia to serve

out his prison term is among the motives Colorado detectives are

investigating in Tuesday's murder of the state's prison director Tom

Clements.

 

The Denver Fox affiliate reported that the Saudi angle "is the primary

working theory in the murder" and that others involved in the case, from the

state prosecutor to the U.S. attorney, are under police protection.

 

Clements was killed after answering a knock in his home's front door. A

witness reported seeing a vacant car with its engine running

 

"We're aware of that information. We're sensitive to the fact that there

could be any number of people may have had a motive for wanting to target

him for a crime such as this," Lt. Jeff Kramer of the El Paso County

Sheriff's Office told reporters.

 

One week earlier, Clements denied a Saudi request to have Colorado inmate

Homaidan Al-Turki returned to Saudi Arabia to serve out his prison sentence

from a 2006 conviction for sexual assaulting a housekeeper, who was

described as a "virtual slave." Al-Turki has refused to undergo sex offender

treatment, saying it would violate his Islamic faith.

 

"Your successful participation in the Sex Offender Treatment and Monitoring

Program would reflect positive progression and, although there can be no

guarantees of future determinations, could result in your eventual parole or

transfer to a Saudi Arabian prison," Clements wrote March 11 in explaining

why he denied al-Turki's request.

 

The decision reportedly angered Saudi officials.

 

On Tuesday, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported on a January

agreement between the Department of Homeland Security and Saudi Arabia to

allow Saudi travelers to apply for the Global Entry program, which allows

pre-vetted passengers to avoid long Customs and Border Protection lines at

U.S. airports. Critics, including former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida,

said the program appeared to be "a continuation" of an American policy of

deference toward Saudi Arabia despite the role Saudi nationals played in the

9/11 attacks.

 

As Daniel Pipes has chronicled, the Saudis have long taken an interest in

al-Turki's case, paying for his bond after his 2005 arrest and trying to

intervene in the case. The State Department sent Colorado Attorney General

John Suthers to Saudi Arabia to discuss al-Turki's conviction with members

of the royal family, including King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan.

 

Clements' murder may turn out to be unrelated. Other reports indicate

investigators say the killing did not look like a professional hit. They are

looking into his telephone records and pursuing other theories.

 

But the dispatching of a state attorney general to quell Saudi anger is

telling about U.S-Saudi relations. Saudi Arabia is in no position to cast

aspersions on the American justice system. Two days after Clements decided

not to repatriate al-Turki, Saudi Arabia executed seven men convicted of

robbery and related crimes.

 

This drew strong condemnation from United Nations Commissioner for Human

Rights Navi Pillay.

 

"Under international safeguards adopted by the United Nations Economic and

Social Council, and reaffirmed by the General Assembly, capital punishment

may be imposed only for 'the most serious crimes' and only after the most

rigorous judicial process," Pillay said in a news release. "As I pointed out

to the Government of Saudi Arabia before the men were executed, neither of

those fundamental criteria appear to have been fulfilled in these cases."

 

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