State Department adopts new policy after Oregon teen killed in hit-and-run

PORTLAND, Ore. (KGW) — A new policy adopted by the U.S. government attempts to censure foreign officials who have assisted fugitives in escaping justice. The “Fallon Smart Policy” draws its name from a Portland teenager whose family still has not found justice years after her death.

Fallon Smart was 15 years old, soon to be a sophomore at Franklin High School, when a driver hit and killed her as she crossed the street in Southeast Portland. Police arrested the suspected driver, identified as Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah, 21. He was charged with first-degree manslaughter, hit-and-run, reckless driving and multiple counts of reckless endangering.

Noorah was a Saudi national studying at Portland Community College. With help from the Saudi Arabian consulate, he was able to post bail within a month of his arrest. He had to wear an ankle monitor as a condition of his release.

A few weeks before he was set to stand trial, Noorah disappeared. Subsequent investigation found that he’d been picked up in a black SUV. His ankle monitor was cut off and ditched in an East Portland sand and gravel yard, The Oregonian reported.

Months later, U.S. officials learned that Noorah had resurfaced back in Saudi Arabia. Investigators came to believe that his government had helped him get out of the country.

Smart’s case, and Noorah’s, have not been isolated. The Saudi government in particular has earned a reputation for spiriting away citizens accused of crimes in the U.S. — leaving victims and their families with no recourse.

U.S Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon has made it one of his primary missions to see the Saudi Arabian government held accountable. Those sentiments most recently surfaced when the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour planned a tournament at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in North Plains last summer.

LIV Golf and the PGA Tour announced earlier this month that they would merge.

“If one of the golfers was visiting with me this morning, and said ‘I’m just here to play golf ‘… I would say ‘I understand why you might say that, so here’s my question for you: How would you feel if Fallon Smart was your daughter?’” Wyden told KGW last year. “’And the person who murdered her was whisked out of the country by the government that is throwing enormous sums of money around to cleanse their bloodstained hands, to engage in sportswashing?’”

Now, nearly 7 years after Smart’s death, the U.S. government is taking some action in her name.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken unveiled the Fallon Smart Policy on Wednesday. It represents a new suite of visa restrictions on foreign government officials and agents who have “intervened in a manner beyond the reasonable provision of consular services to assist fugitives accused or convicted of serious crimes to evade the U.S. justice system.”

The restrictions can apply to implicated officials and their immediate family members. Blinken’s statement was not accompanied by the names of any officials in particular, nor did it mention the Saudi Arabian government.

“Today’s announcement of the ‘Fallon Smart Policy’ enshrines in U.S. policy the principle that there can be no room in America for foreign officials who help criminal suspects dodge the law,” Sen. Wyden said in a statement. “The loss of Fallon to her family and loved ones can never be erased, but this new State Department policy named for this young Portlander killed by a foreign national establishes genuine accountability for any foreign official who assists fugitives fleeing U.S. justice.”