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Saudi government helped accused killer flee the US: Report

Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah killed 15-year-old Fallon Smart in a hit-and-run incident in August 2016. (Photo via Multnomah County Sheriff Office)

A report has revealed that the United States Department of Homeland Security and Marshals Service have evidence that Saudi Arabia assisted a Saudi national, accused of murder, to flee the US.

Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah, who faces at least 10 years in jail for first-degree murder, was bailed out of jail, given a fake passport and flown to Saudi Arabia using Saudi consular assistance, according to an investigative report published by The Oregonian on Sunday.

Noorah, who killed 15-year-old Fallon Smart in a hit-and-run incident due to reckless driving, was set to face trial on June 2017.

The Saudi consulate, however, paid $100,000 of his $1 million dollar bail, which was enough to get him released with a GPS monitoring bracelet.

Facing trial in two weeks, the 21-year-old Portland Community College student fled the country after being picked up by a black SUV and cutting the monitor from his ankle, according to authorities.

The US Marshals Service says this black GMC Yukon XL drove Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah out to a sand-a-gravel yard in east Portland, where he removed an ankle monitor he was wearing while awaiting trial, on June 10, 2017. (Photo via US Marshals Service)

This past July, 13 months after Noorah's disappearance, the Saudi government notified Homeland Security of the man's arrival in Saudi Arabia on June 17, 2017. Noorah had disposed his monitoring bracelet seven days earlier.

Federal investigators believe Noorah couldn't have escaped without being given an illicit passport by Saudi authorities. Given that American investigations have found no trace of the suspect using commercial flights, Noorah is suspected of using a private carrier to escape.

Saudi authorities have declined to comment on how Noorah, who received a monthly $1,850 stipend from the Saudi government for a college scholarship in the US, has returned to the Saudi Kingdom.

The case of Noorah is, nonetheless, not the first case where the Saudis are suspected to have helped Saudi convicts attempt to flee the US.

The Saudi mission similarly bailed out accused rapists Ali Hussain Alhamoud in 2012 and Monsour Alshammari in 2015. Alshammari was arrested at the US-Mexico border. Alhamoud, however, successfully returned to Saudi Arabia.

“It begs the question: Why isn’t the Saudi government respecting our justice system?” says Chris Larsen, a lawyer for Smart’s mother Fawn Lengvenis. “It’s reprehensible.”

The case of Noorah comes as US-Saudi ties have come under mounting scrutiny following the kingdom's role in the brutal murder of dissident journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey last October.

American authorities have, however, been hesitant over imposing such measures against the oil-rich kingdom, with US President Donald Trump commenting that such retributions could have negative consequences on the US economy.


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