Saudi crown prince implicated in death
WASHINGTON – Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, approved the operation “to capture or kill” Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence report released Friday.
U.S. intelligence officials came to that conclusion based on several factors, including the direct involvement of a top bin Salman adviser in Khashoggi’s murder and “the crown prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad,” the report states.
“Since 2017, the crown prince has had absolute control of the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the crown prince’s authorization,” says the fourpage document released by the Office of National Intelligence.
Lawmakers said the long-anticipated report demands a forceful U.S. response – including possible penalties for the crown prince, who is known by his initials as MBS.
“The highest levels of the Saudi government, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, are culpable in the murder of journalist and American resident Jamal Khashoggi,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
“The Biden Administration will need to follow this attribution of responsibility with serious repercussions against all of the responsible parties it has identified, and also reassess our relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Schiff said.
But the Biden administration quickly signaled it would not take action directly against the crown prince.
The State Department said it would use a “Khashoggi ban” to impose visa restrictions “on those who engage in extraterritorial attacks on journalists or activists.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the new visa restriction policy would apply to 76 Saudi individuals believed to have been engaged in threatening dissidents overseas, including but not limited to the Khashoggi killing.
The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against Ahmed alAssiri, a high-ranking Saudi military official who was fired from his position after Khashoggi’s murder.
But the crown prince was not targeted in Friday’s actions – a decision Blinken defended as part of a strategy to preserve a pivotal U.S. alliance.
“The relationship with Saudi Arabia is bigger than any one individual,” Blinken said Friday. He added that America’s alliance with Saudi Arabia remains important and reiterated U.S. support for the kingdom’s ability to defend itself.
He argued the release of the intelligence report was in itself a significant step, shining a “bright light” on Khashoggi’s murder. And he said the Biden administration was conducting an ongoing review of weapons sales to ensure the U.S. stopped shipping offensive arms to the kingdom.
Khashoggi, a U.S. resident who had been critical of the Saudi ruling family, was killed inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018.
The crown prince has denied he ordered Khashoggi’s killing. Saudi officials have acknowledged that operatives from the kingdom carried out the killing, but they’ve portrayed it as a rogue operation gone awry.
Blinken’s remarks are likely to anger and disappoint lawmakers and human rights advocates.
A human rights group founded by Khashoggi called on President Joe Biden to slap penalties on bin Salman.
“The Biden administration and other international governments should hold MBS accountable for Khashoggi’s murder by imposing on him the full range of sanctions, including asset freezes,” the group, Democracy for the Arab World Now, said in a statement Friday. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation also should open a criminal investigation into the murder of a U.S. resident, as they have of other Americans executed abroad.”