Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), founded by the late Jamal Khashoggi and his fiancé, Hatice Cengiz, said it has used WhatsApp? and other means to successfully serve Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and others with a complaint over Khashoggi's murder.
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They filed in a D.C. Federal District Court in October 2020. The suit alleges that "MBS and other Saudi officials 'acting in a conspiracy and with premeditation, kidnapped, bound, drugged and tortured, and assassinated U.S.-resident journalist and democracy advocate Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey,' and that the murder caused plaintiffs grievous injury and harm."
Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime in opinion pieces in the Washington Post, was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2018.
They are seeking relief under the Alien Torte claims Act and Torture Victim Protection Act for an extrajudicial killing that caused the pain and suffering to Cengiz.
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Judge John Bates earlier this month approved their proposed method of serving the complaint, which was a combination of "WhatsApp messaging, express mail to the Saudi General Prison Directorate for various defendants currently imprisoned in Saudi prisons, publication in the New York Times International Edition and Al-Quds Al-Araby, and notice to MBS’s lawyers of record on two other litigations he faces in the United States."
