Almost truly incredible – the farce of Saudi Arabia’s Investigation of Jamal Khashoggi’s Murder

Saudi Arabia’s Investigation of Jamal Khashoggi’s Murder Is a Tragic Farce, New Yorker, By Robin Wright, November 16, 2018 Despite six weeks of ferocious denials by Saudi Arabia, U.S. intelligence has concluded that the kingdom’s ambitious young crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, personally ordered the execution of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in Istanbul last month, the Washington Postreported late Friday. The U.S. assessment was reportedly based on a growing array of hard data as well as a psychological study of the thirty-three-year-old prince. The most damning and specific intelligence was provided by Turkey, including audio recordings of the murder inside the Saudi consulate and a call from the diplomatic mission back to Saudi Arabia immediately afterwards. Turkey shared both with the C.I.A. director Gina Haspel. But the United States also had its own electronic intercepts of conversations, some retrieved in a search of its electronic archives after Khashoggi’s murder on October 2nd, the Post reported. One was reportedly between the crown prince’s brother Khalid, who was the Saudi Ambassador to Washington at the time, and Khashoggi, who was told to go to Istanbul to get official papers proving his divorce so he could remarry.

The C.I.A. assessment contradicts the Saudi version of events, which was released just a day earlier.

With a straight face, the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, explained the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to a group of journalists on Thursday by saying, dismissively, “Sometimes mistakes happen.” The kingdom wrapped up its investigation by charging eleven men—five face the death penalty—and offering yet a fourth (or is it now the fifth?) version of the Washington Postcolumnist’s execution. The Saudis initially claimed that Khashoggi left the Saudi consulate alive. It later admitted that he’d died—but only after he initiated a fistfight and succumbed to a choke hold meant simply to subdue him. At the time, al-Jubeir insisted that Khashoggi’s body had been rolled up in a carpet and taken out of the consulate in one piece. The government later admitted that he’d been dismembered. Now it’s claiming that Khashoggi was tied up and injected with an overdose of a sedative that accidentally killed him.

“May Allah rest his soul,” the Saudi investigation concluded.

The announcement generated more questions than answers. The suspects were not named. The kingdom still claims not to know where Khashoggi’s body is, since its agents gave his remains to a “local collaborator” whose name it allegedly does not know. (It said it provided a rough “sketch” to Turkish officials.) It offered no explanation of why one of the fifteen men—the same height and girth as Khashoggi—donned the journalist’s clothing after his death and walked around Istanbul, then switched back to his clothing in a public restroom, after which he tossed what appeared to be Khashoggi’s trousers and jacket into a dumpster. And then there is the inconvenient issue of the bone saw revealed in a security X-ray of the Saudis’ luggage.

The kingdom’s investigation is increasingly becoming a farce. Reading between the lines, the report seemed determined most of all to counter a widespread suspicion that Saudi Arabia’s young de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed, or M.B.S. as he’s popularly known, was behind the operation……..https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/saudi-arabias-investigation-of-jamal-khashoggis-murder-is-a-tragic-farce?mbid=nl_Daily%20111618&CNDID=35537674&utm_source=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20111618&utm_content=&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=Daily%20111618&hasha=4b5cd80c0ff359f3043679dfee3a5e07&hashb=d9177a4afc21a296a46a8d1268a8277000d132ab&spMailingID=14634830&spUserID=MTMzMTgzNzUxNjAwS0&spJobID=1521277836&spReportId=MTUyMTI3NzgzNgS2