Saudi prince ‘directed murder of Khashoggi’
US report claims MBS had a key role in journalist’s killing, but Biden refuses to sanction him directly
Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, approved the murder and dismembering of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a declassified US intelligence report released last night, but was spared from a new round of sanctions. The US announced sanctions against more than a dozen Saudis implicated in the 2018 killing, but the Biden administration did not go so far as to directly punish Prince Mohammed, the de facto ruler of the kingdom.
THE US last night publicly accused Mohammed bin Salman of ordering the murder and dismemberment of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but spared the Saudi crown prince in a wave of new sanctions that would have risked relations between the allies.
The report asserts that Prince Mohammed directed the assassination in which Mr Khashoggi, a writer for The Washington Post and a US resident, was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, then killed and cut into pieces.
The US treasury department announced sanctions against more than a dozen Saudis implicated in the murder after the long-awaited report was released yesterday, but the Biden administration did not go so far as to directly punish the de facto ruler of the kingdom himself.
“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince … approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” the four-page report, released by the Office for the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), found.
The report said the crown prince had “absolute control” of the kingdom’s security and intelligence organisations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the his authorisation.
The killing also fit a pattern of “the crown prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad,” the report added.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, yesterday declared a new “Khashoggi ban”, which would see the US bar entry to foreigners who threaten dissidents, beginning with 76 Saudi individuals implicated in the journalist’s death.
“We have made absolutely clear that extraterritorial threats and assaults by Saudi Arabia against activists, dissidents and journalists must end,” Mr Blinken said in a statement.
“They will not be tolerated by the United States,” he added.
Mr Khashoggi, who had written pieces critical of the Saudi regime in his weekly column and was living in self-exile, was suffocated and killed by a 15-man team of Saudis who had travelled to Istanbul in the days before the killing. The 59-year-old’s body has never been discovered. “The crown prince viewed Khashoggi as a threat to the Kingdom and broadly supported using violent measures if necessary to silence him,” the US report stated.
“Although Saudi officials had preplanned an unspecified operation against Khashoggi we do not know how far in advance Saudi officials decided to harm him,” the ODNI added, claiming that it was not aware of the plot ahead of time.
The report also confirmed the involvement of a number of Saudi officials in the crown prince’s inner circle, including Saud al-qahtani, the royal court’s media adviser, and Ahmad alassiri, the deputy intelligence chief, who were both exonerated in a closeddoor trial.
Last night, Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, urged the US to impose sanctions against the crown prince “as it has done for the other perpetrators”.
Just one month after the murder of Mr Khashoggi, the US Central Intelligence Agency concluded with high confidence that Prince Mohammed had ordered the killing, but the declassification of their report was blocked by Donald Trump, who was president at the time.
The 35-year-old crown prince, or MBS as he is known, has accepted Saudi Arabia’s overall responsibility in the killing of his vocal critic, but has always denied a personal link.
However, determined to maintain strong relations with Riyadh, Mr Trump refused to publicly hold the Saudi strongman responsible, even as the US government demanded the perpetrators be punished.
Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator for Oregon, yesterday praised the administration for releasing the report but said evidence of their findings should be released. “There’s no question in my mind there is considerably more to declassify here,” he said.
The decision marks a reassessment of relations between Washington and the oil-rich kingdom, which has been its closest Arab ally in the Middle East for decades.
Joe Biden must now navigate a complicated relationship with the US ally that remains a key geostrategic partner and the largest purchaser of Americanmade weapons in the world.
Mr Biden has already ordered a review of US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and is reportedly considering a ban on all non-defensive purchases.
“This will be a different relationship with the Saudi government,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters yesterday.
The move is in line with campaign pledges made by Mr Biden, who has sought to ensure that US weapons are not used to further the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, where its conflict with the Iranian-aligned Houthis has resulted in thousands of deaths.
It came a day after the Biden administration ordered its first airstrikes on Iran-backed militias in Syria, which it said was in response to attacks against US and coalition personnel in Iraq.
The president has been exploring ways of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. However, the strikes send a clear message to Tehran that it is not willing to ignore aggression by its proxies in the region.