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On October 2, 2018, this Saudi journalist, a dissident exiled in the United States, disappeared forever inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Despite the media storm that followed, a UN investigation, the CIA's accusations of a weakened Prince Ben Salman and the macabre details that emerge, the risk is that justice will not be done.
Who was Jamal Khashoggi?
Subject of the Saudi kingdom, from an illustrious ancestry - his grandfather was the personal physician of Ibn Saud - Jamal Khashoggi was once a familiar court in Riyadh. He had been working as a journalist since the mid-1980s. " Jamal Khashoggi [...] remained famous for having followed and interviewed, not without admiration, the Arab mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, " recalls the historian Philippe Pétriat . Until, for a while, he maintained personal relations with Mohammed bin Laden, whom he met in Afghanistan and for whom he was the go-between for a first interview with journalist Robert Fisk in Sudan .
His positions soon evolved towards more democratic ideas from a political point of view, without having been the liberal progressive, from a societal point of view, that could be described. When Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) took charge of the kingdom's current affairs in June 2017, he was perceived everywhere, by his first steps , as a reforming messiah. But between the two men, reports became tense. Khashoggi did not have his pen in his pocket; he was precious to his freedom of tone and opinion. His writings were problematic for the prince. " Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his entourage did not tolerate the fact that Khashoggi is honest, saying what he thinks and can not be bought, " wrote his friend journalist David Hearst . In particular, he says, he thinks of the " dangers to be agreed with Trump ".
Since no one is a prophet in his country, and feeling the pressure increase, he exiles in the United States in September 2017. His pen becomes more bitter in the columns of the Washington Post , flagship of the American press. An unbearable fly of the boat for Ben Salman.
The day of October 2
On October 2, 2018, at 3:30 am, nine Saudis landed from a private jet at Istanbul Airport. All are soldiers, intelligence officers, members of the prince's close guard, holders of a diplomatic passport. Among them, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, an intelligence officer at the Saudi Embassy in London and the right hand of Prince Ben Salman's adviser, as well as a medical examiner, Dr. Salah Mohammed Tubaigy. They join other Saudis, with similar status. They are fifteen in total.
In the morning, Jamal Khashoggi receives a call asking him to go at 1 pm to the consulate of Saudi Arabia, to which he had earlier confirmed his arrival. The journalist came to Istanbul for the second time to collect administrative documents allowing him to marry his Turkish girl, Hatice Cengiz. At the consulate, the staff was instructed not to leave their office or leave the premises at noon for a diplomatic visit.
13:02, at the consulate. Maher Mutreb addresses the medical examiner Tubaigy: will it be possible to put the trunk in a bag? " No. Too heavy ", simply replies the second, before adding:" We will cut the joints, it is not a problem. The body is heavy. First, I cut on the floor. If we take plastic bags and cut it into pieces, it will be fixed. We will pack all the pieces. Then he worries about his fate: " My boss is not aware of what I am doing. Nobody protects me. At the end of the conversation, Maher Mutreb asks if the " sacrificial animal " has arrived. A voice confirms.
1:15 p.m.. Jamal Khashoggi leaves his fiancée at the entrance and enters the diplomatic enclosure. The turning point of his life is then in less than 25 minutes. According to the UN investigation, he is taken to the second floor where he converses with Maher Mutreb. He is asked to write to his son, which he refuses, he is informed that he must be brought back to Saudi Arabia, which he refuses.
The exchange ends like this: " There is a towel here. Are you going to drug me? Khashoggi asks. " We will anesthetize you. "The recordings then suggest that the victim was injected with a sedative, before suffocating, head in a plastic bag. Turkish intelligence reports that at 13:39, a sound of saw is heard.
At 15h, two vehicles leave the consulate and arrive two minutes later at the consul's office. Three men carry bags.
Seventeen days later, Saudi Arabia can only confirm the death of the journalist in his diplomatic forum. Without saying where is the body, which can not be found, as Arabia has not allowed the inspection of the consular residence. Jamal Kashoggi was celebrating his 60th birthday.
Western Journalistic Corporation Calls Account, UN and CIA Accuse Riyadh
The reconstitution of the last minutes of Jamal Khashoggi's life was made possible by the clandestine recordings of the Turkish intelligence services inside the consulate. The trail of assassination was quickly profiled in the Turkish and American media throughout the month of October and November, mixing rumors and truths. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has himself questioned the crown prince.
The UN opens an investigation and Agnès Callamard, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, visits Turkey. She gives her report on June 19, 2019, which traces the thread of the events described above.
→ Read the report
" You hear Khashoggi go from feeling of trust to fear, then growing anxiety, terror and finally the realization that something fatal is going to happen, " says lawyer Helena Kennedy who participated in the investigation. The UN, who spoke to the BBC in a documentary broadcast on Monday, September 30th. " I often listen to music when I cut corpses. Sometimes with a coffee and a cigar in hand, "said doctor Tubaigy, according to the lawyer. " He says, " This is the first time in my life that I have to cut pieces on the floor - even a butcher who wants to cut an animal hangs it . " You hear them laugh, it's chilling. "
As early as February 2019, the human rights expert Agnès Callamard had gathered enough evidence to be positive about the fate that had been reserved for Khashoggi, and those who decided as follows: evidence gathered during my mission in Turkey clearly shows that Mr. Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated murder planned and perpetrated by Saudi state officials. "
Before that, November 16, 2018, the Washington Post reports that the CIA concluded that MBS had ordered the assassination. In early December, Gina Haspel, patron of the agency, gives a formal exhibition of the elements available to a small committee of senators. These include the capture of a telephone conversation between MBS and his brother Khaled, ambassador to Washington: the first asks the second to silence Khashoggi, " as soon as possible ." All, Democrats and Republicans, are convinced: " I have no doubt that the Crown Prince (...) ordered the murder and was kept informed of the situation all along, " for example, said on leaving from the meeting the Republican Bob Corker, head of the powerful Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. The White House is a deaf ear: it remains the steadfast ally of Riyadh.
Ben Salman untouchable
Hard to say that nothing has progressed in a year. The investigation by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and even more so the CIA's findings that Ben Salman is the prime contractor, are inspiring. Agnes Callamard advocates an international criminal investigation, but is not yet followed at the UN summit.
In the kingdom, eleven people, including nine among the fifteen commando dispatched to Turkey, have been imprisoned and are currently tried in a closed room from which nothing filters. Among them are Maher Mutreb and Dr. Tubaigy. Capital punishment was required against five of them. In the eyes of Saudi judges, however, Ben Salman is innocent.
On September 25, in an interview with PBS's Frontline program , PBS told the audience about the assassination. Mohammed bin Salman, who had previously denied any involvement in the case, assumes " the entire responsibility, because it happened under my supervision ".
Interviewed this 1st October by Orient XXI , a French news site specializing in the Middle East, Agnès Callamard decrypts the confessions of "MBS": " This means that he recognizes, at least indirectly, that this crime is a crime against State in so far as he is a statesman and where he lets it be understood that he is the quasi-head of state. But he does not recognize his individual responsibility for the crime, on the contrary ; he distances himself by explaining that there are millions of public servants working, ministers who follow the files and that he can not control all their actions. He does not recognize his personal criminal responsibility. "
The expert continues: " In any event, the trial [in Riyadh] can not be considered fair, even if it ends in convictions. On the other hand, and even if among the accused there is General Ahmad Al-Assiri, the main official Saud al-Qahtani has not been charged. This close friend of MBS quoted by many witnesses in the case of the abduction of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the torture of women's rights activists is yet a major suspect. He was even quoted by the Saudi prosecutor as one of the people who incited the crime and urged the team to bring back Khashoggi because he was a threat to national security. Rumors claim he was killed, but I could not confirm them. "
Diplomats from the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council and Turkey are allowed to attend as observers at the trial without an interpreter.
A year later, the shockwave has dissipated well thanks to the Middle East realpolitik (even unfavorable to Ben Salman) and the report has a nice game to call the international community to put "MBS" under sanctions , including freezing his personal assets abroad. The murdered journalist's face simply resurfaced at commemorations and demonstrations. If he does not haunt the spirit of his executioners.