Our view: Don’t let the Saudis get away with murder
How stupid does Saudi Arabia think people are? In the seven weeks since journalist Jamal Khashoggi vanished after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, the Saudis have offered a shifting series of fables to explain what happened to him.
In chronological order, the government in Riyadh has said that:
❚ Khashoggi left the consulate on his own in a matter of minutes, even though his fiancée grew frantic waiting outside for hours. (“We are very keen to know what happened to him,” the kingdom’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, told Bloomberg News at the time. “We have nothing to hide.”)
❚ A 15-member team that flew into Istanbul, described by Turkish authorities as a Saudi hit squad, was only a group of tourists.
❚ Khashoggi was strangled in the consulate after a fistfight broke out.
❚ The killing was a “rogue” operation and possibly premeditated.
❚ The agents had intended to bring the journalist home alive, and the killing was improvised, not premeditated.
According to Saudi prosecutors’ latest version, a team leader chose to kill Khashoggi by lethal injection and have his body dismembered. Bin Salman, of course, “did not have any knowledge” of the crime.
This latest round-up-the-usualsuspects cover story raises three questions: Why would anyone bring a bone saw to a planned abduction? What happened to Khashoggi’s body?And why should anyone believe a word the Saudis say about this matter?
Far more credible accounts about the fate of Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Virginia resident who wrote columns for The Washington Post, have come from Turkish investigators. They have released evidence of a meticulous plot that included a look-alike to dress in Khashoggi’s clothing and make it appear he left the consulate, and a forensic specialist equipped with a saw for cutting up the body.
They also have audio evidence that Khashoggi was killed soon after entering the consulate, and that a close aide to the crown prince, Maher Mutreb, called a superior to say “tell your boss” the mission was accomplished.
And who was the “boss” in question? Within 24 hours of Riyadh dispensing its latest revisionist version of Khashoggi’s grisly murder, news outlets reported the CIA’s “high confidence” conclusion that the dissident journalist was assassinated by Salman’s order. A more complete report is due out as early as today.
The CIA finding not only puts a lie to the Saudi government’s determination to distance the hot-headed and impetuous Salman from a killing carried out by his closest aides, but it also places President Donald Trump in a tough moral dilemma.
The president has vowed “very severe” repercussions if Riyadh is responsible for the killing of Khashoggi. But he has stopped short of blaming the 33-year-old Saudi leader, whom Trump sees as a vital ally in countering Iranian influence and in brokering a Middle East peace deal.
“I hope ... the crown prince didn’t know about it,” Trump said last month. On Sunday, the president suggested that it will be difficult to establish definitive proof. “Will anybody really know?” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace.
Not if the cover-up is allowed to succeed. Saudi prosecutors have announced indictments of 11 unnamed defendants for the murder, including five who may face execution — which, if carried out, would conveniently eliminate five potential witnesses.
The Trump administration has issued sanctions against Mutreb and 16 other midlevel players said to be involved in Khashoggi’s murder. But as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., noted on CNN: “Sanctioning people who are already in jail is sort of like pretending to do something.”
He’s right. According to the CIA, a crown prince with a history of repressing dissent acted ruthlessly and recklessly to silence a critic, in rank violation of American values. Anything less than severe sanctions — diplomatic, economic and military — is tantamount to letting him get away with murder.