Saudi crown prince authorized killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi: US intelligence report

Image Source : AP Saudi crown prince authorized killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorized an operation to seize or kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, in keeping with a US intelligence report submitted to Congress. Fifty-nine-year-old Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist who lived within the US as a authorized everlasting resident and wrote for the Washington Post, was essential of the prince’s insurance policies and was killed within the Saudi Arabian Consulate within the Turkish metropolis on October 2, 2018.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) mentioned within the report that on the time of the Khashoggi homicide, the prince in all probability fostered an surroundings wherein aides had been afraid that failure to finish assigned duties may end in him firing or arresting them.
This means that the aides had been unlikely to query the prince’s orders or undertake delicate actions with out his consent, mentioned the report dated February 11, a declassified portion of which was submitted to Congress on Friday.
“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Khashoggi,” it mentioned.
ODNI mentioned it bases the evaluation on the prince’s management of choice making within the Saudi Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman’s protecting element within the operation and his help for utilizing violent measures to silence dissidents overseas, together with Khashoggi.
“Since 2017, the crown prince has 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 prince’s authorisation,” acknowledged the report.
Soon after the report’s submission, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken introduced the “Khashoggi Ban” that imposes visa restrictions on 76 Saudi people believed to have been engaged in threatening dissidents abroad, together with however not restricted to the Khashoggi killing.
Blinken mentioned in October 2018, the world was horrified by the homicide of Khashoggi, a lawful everlasting US resident, within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Individuals ought to have the ability to train their human rights and elementary freedoms with out concern of presidency retribution, retaliation, punishment or hurt. Khashoggi paid along with his life to specific his beliefs, he mentioned.
“President (Joe) Biden said in a statement released last October on the second anniversary of the murder that Mr Khashoggi’s death would not be in vain, and that we owe it to his memory to fight for a more just and free world,” he mentioned.
Blinken mentioned the Biden administration submitted an unclassified report back to Congress, offering transparency on the killing.
He mentioned as a part of the president’s pledge, the US is saying “additional measures to reinforce the world’s condemnation of that crime, and to push back against governments that reach beyond their borders to threaten and attack journalists and perceived dissidents for exercising their fundamental freedoms”.
Blinken mentioned the “Khashoggi Ban” permits the State Department to impose visa restrictions on people who, performing on behalf of a overseas authorities, are believed to have been straight engaged in critical extraterritorial counter-dissident actions.

These actions embrace those who suppress, harass, surveil, threaten or hurt journalists, activists or different individuals perceived to be dissidents for his or her work or who have interaction in such actions with respect to the households or different shut associates of such individuals, he mentioned.
“Family members of such individuals also may be subject to visa restrictions under this policy, where appropriate,” Blinken mentioned, including that to begin, the division, imposed restrictions on the 76 Saudi people.
The ODNI report mentioned the 15-member Saudi staff that arrived in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, included officers who labored for or had been related to the Saudi Center for Studies and Media Affairs on the Royal Court.
It mentioned on the time of the operation, CSMARC was led by Saud al-Qahtani, a detailed adviser of Salman, who claimed publicly in mid-2018 that he didn’t make choices with out the prince’s approval.
The staff additionally included seven members of the prince’s elite private protecting element, referred to as the Rapid Intervention Force. The RIF, subset of the Saudi Royal Guard, exists to defend the prince, solutions solely to him, and had straight participated in earlier dissident suppression operations within the Kingdom and overseas at his route, the report mentioned.
“We judge that RIF members wouldn’t have participated in the operation against Khashoggi without the prince’s approval,” ODNI mentioned.
The prince considered Khashoggi as a menace to the Kingdom and broadly supported utilizing violent measures if essential to silence him. Though Saudi officers had pre-planned an “unspecified operation against Khashoggi we do not know how far in advance Saudi officials decided to harm him”, it mentioned.
ODNI mentioned it has excessive confidence that just about a dozen people participated in, ordered or had been in any other case complicit in or answerable for the loss of life of Khashoggi on behalf of the prince.
Khashoggi had visited the consulate for paperwork for his marriage to a Turkish girl. The prince in 2019 had mentioned he took “full responsibility” for the killing because it occurred on his watch, however denied ordering it.
On the visa coverage, Blinken mentioned “as a matter of safety for all within our borders, perpetrators targeting perceived dissidents on behalf of any foreign government should not be permitted to reach US soil”.
“While the US remains invested in its relationship with Saudi Arabia, President Biden has made clear that partnership must reflect US values. To that end, we have made absolutely clear that extraterritorial threats and assaults by Saudi Arabia against activists, dissidents and journalists must end,” he mentioned.
(With inputs from AP and PTI)

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