Khashoggi and the Crown Prince
Page 13
Putin was well-seasoned in flouting international opinion since his rule began in 2001. Like MBS he had started out being the darling of the global media, hailed as a breath of fresh air – that is, until the excruciating death by poisoning of former FSB colonel Alexander Litvinenko, in London, with rare isotope Polonium 210 produced in a high-security Russian government facility. He had merely shrugged his shoulders indifferently at the fall-out, gleefully countering what was levelled at Russia with his own ‘facts’ and ‘conclusions’ in a precursor to Trump’s rallying cry of ‘false news’. Since then he had invaded and incorporated Crimea as part of Russia, fired on Ukranian boats in the Kerch Strait, all without real punishment.
He had literally got away with the assassination of many inconvenient people outside of Russia, notably in Britain (Dr Matthew Puncher, the scientist who identified Polonium 210, strangely committed suicide after a visit to Russia) and even some in the supposedly safe US. One of his latest casualties was Dawn Sturgess, who had tragically died of the poison intended for fellow Salisbury-resident, the former GRU colonel Sergei Skripal. Skripal had survived the debilitating attack. Nothing of note had happened to Russia that deterred it. Putin had even tilted at the US presidential elections through Facebook and Twitter without any real repercussions to speak of – certainly not under President Trump’s White House, which was fearful that an investigation would by extension question the legitimacy of his presidency.
In fact, when Putin had launched his surprise attack on ‘traitor’ Sergei Skripal at the energy conference on 3 October, the day after Jamal Khashoggi had been disfingered, decapitated and dismembered by Saudi operatives, Putin helpfully summarised his own experience with the fall-out of international opinion for his listeners – who included Saudi Arabia representatives. Dismissing it as ‘hubbub’, he concluded that it would always die down eventually. The real problem on the other hand Putin thundered was: ‘As is well known, espionage, like prostitution, is one of the most important professions in the world. Nobody has managed to stop them and nobody is still able to do it.’
Two days before the G20, the Kremlin had promised that a face-to-face meeting between MBS and Putin where they ‘would discuss the killing last month of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi… oil markets and the conflict in Syria’. They could now discuss directly what Putin had previously said at the two energy conferences.
How would this meeting go? Since 2 October, Putin had drawn Saudi Arabia’s rival Turkey closer with the taped information on the Khashoggi murder, and Putin had further successfully destabilised Washington. Russia was the third largest oil producer in the world. Saudi Arabia was at the fulcrum of global opinion due to the tapes. How, then, were relations with fellow oil producer Saudi Arabia and MBS, head of Aramco, the world’s second largest oil producer after the US?
More than excellent, since you ask. All was clearly forgiven. Like school boys in on a racket they high-fived and it was all smiles. President Donald Trump, sensing no publicity opportunity, appeared to snub them both, on this occasion.
16 Questions
ℭ
A trove of text messages between Khashoggi and Montreal-based activist Omar Abdulaziz surfaced in December. They showed the depth of Khashoggi’s animosity to MBS. One read: ‘Like Pac-Man… the more victims he eats, the more he wants. I will not be surprised if the oppression will reach even those who are cheering him on.’ Another called the ruler who had never lived outside the kingdom a ‘beast’. According to the Independent, the texts may have been accessed by Saudi security officials and contributed to the plot that led his death.
It was claimed that Khashoggi was preparing a social media protest against the regime before he was murdered. He and Abdulaziz outlined plans to post documents detailing human rights abuses carried out by Saudi Arabia and spread the information via the tweets of young Saudi dissidents, CNN reported. Khashoggi pledged $30,000 towards the plan, which included sending untraceable foreign Sim cards to activists in Saudi Arabia. After Khashoggi’s death, Abdulaziz sued NSO Group, an Israeli software company that he believed provided spyware to the Saudis, allowing the government to hack their messages which were conveyed via the normally secure WhatsApp.
Khashoggi was also at the heart of an ‘online army’ of Saudi activists fighting a misinformation cyberwar, according to friends who feared he may have been targeted because of his support. He had recently given $5,000 to ‘Geish al-Nahla’, or the Bee Army, an opposition movement offering cyber protection to Saudi activists needing a safe platform to speak out inside the oppressive kingdom. This was also the brainchild of twenty-seven-year-old Omar Abdulaziz.
Turkey also took action. An Istanbul court issued arrest warrants for former deputy head of Saudi intelligence general Ahmad al-Asiri and Saudi royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani for ‘wilful murder with monstrous sentiment’.
‘The prosecution’s move to issue arrest warrants for Asiri and Qahtani reflects the view that the Saudi authorities won’t take formal action against those individuals,’ a Turkish official said. But Saudi Arabia made it clear it would not extradite the suspects.
‘We don’t extradite our citizens,’ said Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir.
UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet agreed and called for an international investigation. On 30 January, while UN investigator Agnes Callamard was in Istanbul, Saudi Arabia had still not agreed to give access to the consulate. Callamard was allowed to listen to the tape. In Washington, DC, protestors renamed the street outside the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia ‘Khashoggi Way’. Their fake street sign was accompanied by an inflatable rat made to mimic Donald Trump.
More damaging to the White House, it was reported that Jared Kushner offered private counselling to Mohammed bin Salman on how ‘how to weather the storm’ after the murder. Three former senior US officials said the private exchanges could make him susceptible to Saudi manipulation. Kushner urged his hotelier father-in-law to stand by the Crown Prince, which indeed he did. The Saudi prince then boasted to his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Crown Prince bin Zayed, that Kushner was ‘in his pocket’.
Time magazine named writer Jamal Khashoggi and three persecuted journalists as its ‘Person of the Year’. The three were Maria Ressa who was the co-founder of Filipino news site Rappler and had criticised President Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown which had killed nearly five thousand people since 2016, and Reuters reporters Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone who were arrested in Myanmar on 12 December 2017 while investigating the execution of ten Rohingya men. They had been sentenced to seven years in prison.
If the leaks are true, the Saudi team also made a video tape of Jamal Khashoggi’s last moments so that Riyadh had proof that its orders had been carried out correctly. And Khashoggi’s fingers were delivered as concurrent proof for al-Qahtani’s ‘yours’ that all had gone well and that the elite team had executed their orders with military precision.
To date, Jamal Khashoggi’s remains have not been located. We are also left with the question whether he was murdered because of his opinions or because of what he knew about Donald Trump as a member of Saudi’s top intelligence community. And to what extent US intelligence closed its eyes...?
None of the facts in this book, except for the facts provided by Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz, would have been known if the intelligence services of the countries involved had not decided to leak or counter-leak facts in their possession. We would still be entirely in the dark. She herself would always have harboured the niggling doubt that Jamal might surreptitiously have left her standing there.
And so, unless there is another Edward Snowdon or Chelsea Manning out there willing to risk their lives or imprisonment, it is unlikely that we’ll ever have answers that aren’t manipulated for a purpose other than the truth. New revelations will follow, but only if one or more of the security services involved think an objective may be achieved to their benefit.
Appendix
ℭ
The Saudi Consulate
Istanbul (GMT +3)
3.13 amGulfstream jet with tail-mark HZ-SK1 lands at Atatürk Airport from Riyadh carrying between nine and 15 passengers
1.14 pmJamal Khashoggi is pictured on CCTV entering the consulate
3.30 pmThe consulate closes with no sign of Khashoggi, according to his fiancée
3.45 pmSix vehicles, including two vans with blacked-out windows, leave the consulate
4 pmKhashoggi’s fiancée alerts the Turkish authorities
5.15 pmA second Gulfstream jet with tail-mark HZ-SK2 from Riyadh lands at Atatürk Airport
6.20 pmIt then takes off for Egypt, before returning to Riyadh
10.46 pmThe first jet is searched by police and takes off for Dubai, before also heading on to Riyadh.
ℭ
Tuesday October 2
Southaven, Mississippi (GMT -6)
Rally for Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith
‘You have to pay.’
DONALD TRUMP: We protect Saudi Arabia. Would you say they’re rich? And I love the king, King Salman. But I said ‘King – we’re protecting you – you might not be there for two weeks without us – you have to pay for your military. You have to pay’… They have got to reimburse us.
ℭ
Wednesday October 3
Moscow (GMT +3)
Russian Energy Week 2018
‘A traitor.’
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Watching some media outlets, I see that some of your colleagues are pushing forward the theory that Mr Skripal is almost some kind of human rights defender. He is simply a spy, a traitor to his homeland. You get it? There is such a thing – a traitor to one’s homeland. He is one of them. [Applause!] Imagine: You are a citizen of your own country, and all of a sudden you have a man who betrays his own country. How will you, or any representative of any country sitting here, look at him? He’s simply a scumbag, that is all there is to it.
rferl.org/a/putin-slams-traitor-sergei-skripal-bastard/29523407.html
ℭ
Wednesday evening October 3
Riyadh (GMT +3)
MBS interview with Bloomberg
‘I would know that.’
Bloomberg: What’s the Jamal Khashoggi story?
MBS: We hear the rumors about what happened. He’s a Saudi citizen and we are very keen to know what happened to him. And we will continue our dialogue with the Turkish government to see what happened to Jamal there.
Bloomberg: He went into the Saudi consulate.
MBS: My understanding is he entered and he got out after a few minutes or one hour. I’m not sure. We are investigating this through the foreign ministry to see exactly what happened at that time.
Bloomberg: So he’s not inside the consulate?
MBS: Yes, he’s not inside.
Bloomberg: Turkish officials have said he’s still inside.
MBS: We are ready to welcome the Turkish government to go and search our premises. The premises are sovereign territory, but we will allow them to enter and search and do whatever they want to do. If they ask for that, of course, we will allow them. We have nothing to hide.
Bloomberg: Is he facing any charges in Saudi Arabia?
MBS: Actually, we need to know where Jamal is first.
Bloomberg: So he might be facing charges in Saudi Arabia?
MBS: If he’s in Saudi Arabia I would know that.
Bloomberg: So he’s not the person mentioned by Saudi Press Agency?
MBS: No, definitely not.
ℭ
October 18
Sochi (GMT +3)
Valdai Discussion Club
‘I hope America will not go as far as Saudi Arabia did.’
RagidaDergham: Thank you, my name is RagidaDergham. I am Founder and Executive Chairman of Beirut Institute. It’s a think tank for the Arab region with a global reach... On Saudi Arabia, of course, the world is preoccupied with the developments, and I’m wondering what consequences or… Do you see that there may be consequences, on your particular relationships, Russian-Saudi relations, given that you have been eager to have good relations and beyond.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Now concerning Saudi Arabia. What is it that is bothering you? I can’t understand. We have built really good relations with Saudi Arabia in recent years. Please, specify your question about Saudi Arabia. What is it that is perplexing you in this regard? Why should our relations with Saudi Arabia break down?
RagidaDergham: As you know, because of the developments in Istanbul, at the Saudi Consulate, there is a big interest worldwide in the investigation regarding the assassination or the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was our colleague and has been a participant in the Valdai Group. So this is what I am talking about. Right now, of course, there is pressure on President Trump that may reflect on the mid-term elections, and there are countries pulling out and countries being concerned, I mean, media and others are concerned about continuing to be present in Saudi Arabia given the alleged feeling that maybe someone in the government may be involved in this atrocity, of killing of Jamal Khashoggi. That is what I meant. Do you think it will impact your relations with Saudi Arabia at all?
VLADIMIR PUTIN: As far as I know, the journalist, who has disappeared and whom you have just mentioned, lived in the United States of America. He lived in the US, not in Russia. In this sense, the US, of course, bears certain responsibility for what has happened to him. This goes without saying.
He was the one to go to the United States for asylum. In this connection, I would like to say the following. First, we should wait for the results of the investigation to become available. How can we, Russia, start spoiling relations with Saudi Arabia while being unaware of what has really happened over there?
As far as I can judge, this man was to a certain extent a member of the Saudi elite. In some way or other, he was connected with certain ruling circles. It is hard to say, what is going on there.
But we can see that complicated processes are also taking place within the US elites. I hope America will not go as far as Saudi Arabia did. But we don’t know what, in fact, has happened over there. So why should we take any steps directed at downgrading our relations, if we do not understand what is really happening?
If someone understands it and believes that a murder has been committed, then I hope that some evidence will be presented and we will adopt relevant decisions based on this evidence. This gives me a pretext to say something else.
From time to time, there are steps taken against Russia and even sanctions are imposed, as I have repeatedly said, on the basis of flimsy excuses and pretexts. They groundlessly claim that we have allegedly used chemical weapons, even though, incidentally, we have destroyed our chemical weapons, while the United States has failed to do so despite the obligation to that effect it assumed.
So, there is no proof against Russia but steps are being taken. According to claims, the murder was committed in Istanbul, but no steps are being taken.
Uniform approaches to problems of this kind should be sorted. To reiterate: Our policy towards Saudi Arabia has evolved over a long period of time, over many years. Of course, it is a misfortune that a man has disappeared, but we must understand what has really happened.
valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/vladimir-putin-meets-with-valdai-discussion-club/