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Wyden: ‘Fallon Smart rule’ aims to hold foreign officials accountable

Sen. Ron Wyden. (KOIN 6 file photo)

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Oregon’s U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden announced this week that he will lift the hold he placed on a U.S. ambassador nominee to Saudi Arabia following a pledge from the State Department to punish foreign officials who help foreign citizens evade U.S. prosecution.

Wyden placed a hold on ambassador nominee Michael Ratney in September of 2022, nearly four years after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service announced its suspicions that the Saudi government helped Abdulrahman Noorah, a Saudi national accused of killing Portland teen Fallon Smart, escape U.S. custody before he could be tried for manslaughter.

Fallon Smart in an undated photo (KOIN file, 2016)

Noorah remains accused of hitting and killing the 15-year-old with his car as she crossed the street near SE Hawthorne at 42nd on Aug. 19, 2016. However, Noorah was able to escape house arrest and inexplicably flee the country to Saudi Arabia without a passport in 2018, according to The Oregonian, which was the first to report the story.

Wyden issued his announcement in response to the State Department’s new “Fallon Smart rule,” a federal policy that would revoke the visas of foreign officials who help foreign nationals evade prosecution or flee the U.S. justice system.

“There is no way to bring Fallon back to her family and no punishment that will heal the suffering caused by her death, or the many others hurt by foreign nationals who fled the country after being charged with violent crimes,” Wyden was quoted as saying in a press release. “But the ‘Fallon Smart’ rule announced today sends a strong message that there is no place in our country for foreign officials who help criminal suspects evade the law.”

Wyden said that he plans to watch the department’s use of the new policy closely to ensure that the federal government upholds its promise to hold foreign officials accountable for undermining the U.S. justice system.