A joint-reporting project by the The Oregonian newspaper and ProPublica found Noorah’s was one of nearly two dozen similar cases involving Saudis accused of serious crimes, including rape. One accuser says she awoke after a party at her house to find Faisal Altaleb, a Saudi student she didn’t know, on top of her. She told police she had been raped. Altaleb is also back in the kingdom, having fled before he was charged. He still had his passport and it’s unclear if he had help but he’s being protected by the kingdom. Teresa, the accuser, whose last name 60 Minutes agreed not to divulge, is frustrated. “This happened to me; this destroyed my life. But what’s even more disturbing than that to me is… our government isn’t doing anything about it,” she says. “I mean, there was someone else in my town… who was raped by her Saudi Arabian roommate,” says Teresa of another incident that occurred months after hers.
That suspected rapist also fled before he could be charged. Prosecutors say Sami Almezaini got to Mexico first and then to Saudi Arabia, where he is free and out of reach of U.S. law enforcement.
Law enforcement sources told Pelley the cases, though tragic, aren’t as important as maintaining the cooperation between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia crucial to fighting terrorism. This irks Wyden, who has argued on the Senate floor that U.S. intelligence agencies should shed more light on the situation. “The American people deserve to know the truth here,” he tells Pelley, who asks if he has seen the intelligence on the Saudis. “I’m constrained in terms of what I can say. But I can tell your viewers the Saudis pursue these cases with extraordinary sophistication. And they are certainly looking at every possible tool for being above the law,” Wyden says.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member