According to a former UN official who examined Saudi Arabia's murder of dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi, it looks more probable that the US received knowledge ahead of time about the fatal threat posed to him.
The US is making itself "complicit" in Saudi Arabia's impunity, she claims, by neglecting to make public all and any information it has regarding the death, including if it was informed in advance of the dangerous risk he was in.
“If they have any kind of information, from any source, about the killing; if they have information pointing to the extent of MBS's responsibility, or the stops in Cairo, and they don't make it public, they are complicit in impunity,” said Agnes Callamard, the former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions.
Ms. Callamard investigated the murder for six months and concluded in her 2019 report that Saudi Arabia was responsible for the "premeditated execution." She also stated that there was convincing proof of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's (MBS) culpability.
Saudi Arabia denied the prince was to blame, claiming Khashoggi, who was 57 years old, was the victim of a "rogue" operation. It charged a few lower-level operators, but none of the top officials named by US intelligence, whose findings were made public earlier this year in a summary.
There has been a rush of fresh disclosures in recent months regarding the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a long-time supporter of the Saudi monarchy who had fallen out with MBS and was increasingly critical — often in his Washington Post articles.
The New York Times revealed in June that four members of the Saudi assassination squad had received paramilitary training from Tier 1 Group, an Arkansas-based security business controlled by Cerberus Capital Management.
Joe Biden referred to Saudi Arabia as a "pariah" during his presidential campaign and promised to be harder on the nation than Donald Trump.
Despite the fact that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) "assessed" that MBS had sanctioned the murder, no penalties have been imposed on him — only on lower-ranking officials.
Two organizations are suing the US government, requesting that Mr. Biden make public whatever information the US has regarding the murder, as well as what it knew about the threat to Khashoggi, a US resident.
Ms. Callamard, whose inquiry includes listening to a 15-minute audio recording of the death that has yet to be made public, has urged all governments to make all evidence accessible. She expressed her disappointment at how quickly the United States and its relationship with Saudi Arabia had returned to normal.
She said in her 2019 report that she could independently corroborate media claims that both the US and Turkey were aware of the danger to the reporter. She said it looked “less and less likely” that the US was unaware of a threat to Khashoggi two years later.
She added, "Everything we're hearing points to such a strong connectivity between the US and Saudi Arabia, particularly at an intelligence level."
0 Comments