[MAIL] A new bulletin from the FBI has revealed that the Saudi government 'almost certainly' helped its citizens escape prosecution for serious crimes they were charged with in the US, and American officials looked the other way for years. The secret effort was carried out to spare the Persian Gulf kingdom embarrassment, while US officials looked the other way for years, and will likely continue without their intervention, the FBI said in the bulletin released Friday.
The revelation comes after President Donald Trump signed into law a requirement backed by Representative Ron Wyden of Oregon that the FBI disclose what it knows about the Saudi government's suspected role in helping its citizens avoid prosecution in the US.
'(Saudi) officials are unlikely to alter this practice in the near term unless the US Government (USG) directly addresses this issue with (Saudi Arabia) and ties US cooperation on (Saudi) priorities to ceasing this activity,' according to the FBI, reports The Oregonian.
The details are contained in an intelligence bulletin dated August 29, which was released with Friday's bulletin, the news outlet reports.
Details on how the Saudis were getting their nationals out of the US were not included in the report. The scope and frequency of how often Saudi citizens were escaping justice also was not released.
However, it is the first time a federal law enforcement agency acknowledged the secret practice, which isn't so uncommon with wealthy nations seeking to quash alleged misdeeds by its nationals abroad.