Freeze Saudi assets, says Clement
KHASHOGGI DEATH
OTTAWA • Canada should invoke the new Magnitsky Act to sanction those responsible for the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, says Conservative justice critic Tony Clement.
Clement says Saudi Arabia has already identified some individuals who were partially responsible for Khashoggi’s death, adding that the Magnitsky law is a next step the government should consider.
“This may be a prime case for applying the Magnitsky law,” Clement told reporters Monday morning.
Canada passed a law last year called the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, known as the Magnitsky Act, which gives the government the authority to freeze Canadian assets of foreign individuals who are found to have violated human rights.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland condemned the murder of Khashoggi on Monday, saying the various Saudi explanations for his death lacked credibility and consistency.
She said she has spoken with her counterparts from Germany and Turkey in recent days, and is actively engaged with Canada’s allies in a crafting a joint response.
Freeland declined to answer questions about whether the government is considering scrapping the lucrative $15-billion contract to provide Ontario-made light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.
In an interview recorded for a French-language talk show on Oct. 18, before Saudi authorities confirmed Khashoggi’s death, but broadcast on Oct. 21, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would “always defend human rights, including with Saudi Arabia.” Asked about the arms deal, he pointed to clauses in the deal relating to human rights. “If they do not follow these clauses, we will definitely cancel the contract,” Trudeau said.
Monday, in Parliament, he went a step further. “We strongly demand and expect that Canadian exports are used in a way that fully respects human rights,” Trudeau said. “We have frozen export permits before when we had concerns about their potential misuse, and we will not hesitate to do so again.”
Trudeau also convened a meeting of the government’s new Incident Response Group, which includes cabinet ministers and senior government officials, to discuss the Khashoggi affair.
Khashoggi disappeared on Oct. 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get paperwork he needed to get married.
Turkish officials say he was tortured, killed and dismembered at the diplomatic outpost.
According to surveillance video leaked Monday, just hours after Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi Consulate, a man strolled out of the diplomatic post apparently wearing the columnist’s clothes as part of a macabre deception to sow confusion over his fate.
The new video broadcast by CNN, as well as a progovernment Turkish newspaper’s report that a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s entourage made four calls to the royal’s office from the consulate around the same time, put ever-increasing pressure on the kingdom.
Meanwhile, Turkish crime-scene investigators swarmed a garage Monday night in Istanbul where a Saudi consular vehicle had been parked.
All this came on the eve of Prince Mohammed’s highprofile investment summit in Riyadh, which has seen a raft of the world’s top business leaders decline to attend over the slaying of the writer.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also has promised that details of Khashoggi’s killing “will be revealed in all its nakedness” in an address he’ll make before parliament around the same time Tuesday.
The kingdom’s announcement Saturday that Khashoggi died in a “fistfight” was met with international skepticism and allegations of a coverup to absolve the 33-year-old crown prince of direct responsibility.
THIS MAY BE A PRIME CASE FOR APPLYING THE MAGNITSKY LAW.