Justice for Jamal Khashoggi and his Loved Ones: Askari

By: Javad Heirannia

TEHRAN – Professor Hossein Askari, an expert on Saudi Arabia who also teaches international business at the George Washington University, believes that Khashoggi abduction, torture and murder was undoubtedly done on the orders of MBS.”

“This is how Saudi Arabia works. Anyone who is familiar with Saudi Arabia knows this,” Hossein Askari, who served as special advisor to Saudi finance minister, tells the Tehran Times.

He adds that “No matter how they proceed with his contrived trial and punishment, MBS will not let anyone in the know EVER leave Saudi Arabia.”
Following is the text of the interview:

Q: Where are we in the Khashoggi tragedy after Erdogan’s speech and the ever-changing Saudi revelations?

A: On Tuesday Erdogan stated in the Turkish Parliament some of the allegations we have received little by little through leaks, but nothing new. The Saudis changed their ‘story’ yet again and admitted that the murder of Khashoggi was premeditated but still insisted that it was carried out by ‘rogue’ elements, interestingly a story first floated by Trump. The Saudis have not given Turkey unfettered access to the consulate as if they have something to hide. The director of the CIA visited Turkey, a country she knows well as she was stationed there and speaks the language quite fluently. She has admitted to listening to audio tapes. Upon her return on Thursday, she briefed Trump. Trump has remained silent since his briefing, maybe because he learned some facts and knows that Saudi disclosure have been lies and he has enabled them. On Friday, Turkey demanded the extradition of 18 Saudis to Turkey for interrogation and trial. The fiancé of Jamal Khashoggi gave her first interview and revealed that she had been invited to the U.S. but would not go because of U.S. insincerity in addressing Khashoggi’s murder. Later, the Saudi foreign minister stated that those arrested would be tried in Saudi Arabia.

Q: Will Saudi Arabia extradite any of the culprits to Turkey?

A: No. Absolutely not. The Saudi foreign minister has ruled this out. Let me back up. Erdogan knew full well that the Saudis would not extradite anyone but he made this request to tease the Saudi ruling family and especially MBS as he has been doing all along. If the Saudis extradite even one person, they would be afraid that the person would tell all. A supposed closed trial in Saudi Arabia would reveal nothing. They could determine the punishment, if any. And they would hope that this would be the end of the story. Most important, MBS wants to protect himself. Let me emphasize one point. This abduction, torture and murder was undoubtedly done on the orders of MBS. This is how Saudi Arabia works. Anyone who is familiar with Saudi Arabia knows this. No matter how they proceed with his contrived trial and punishment, MBS will not let anyone in the know EVER leave Saudi Arabia. As a further piece of evidence, the Saudis have refused to produce Khashoggi’s body, or its parts, and after the CIA briefing on Thursday Trump he has gone silent on the Khashoggi affair. He knows what happened and does not want to continue his public support of MBS.

Q: Can justice be served in Saudi Arabia?

A: Absolutely not. Closed trial. No public evidence. A complicit judiciary. No way!

Q: What does this tragedy tell us about Saudi Arabia?

A: MBS has adopted cosmetic reforms while cracking down on political freedom. It is a country ruled by a family who see the land and everything in it theirs. Saudi Arabia needs meaningful reforms. The rulers must change their mindset. Stop seeing the country as simply ‘theirs’ and the people as hired hands. They should adopt a timetable for representative government, respect for human and political rights, the rule of law and end their own unfettered access to the Saudi Treasury.

Q: What does it tell us about U.S. foreign policy?

A: All bad. Sadly, yet again, the U.S. confirms its support for its client dictators. The U.S. has not confronted Saudi Arabia. It can do this without breaking its relations with the country. It is not only saying nothing negative about MBS but it continues to support MBS’ misguided adventures, especially his genocide in Yemen with U.S. intelligence, covert support, mid-air refueling and American weapons and bombs. Before Trump the U.S. at least pretended to be the supporter of human and political rights around the world, did not give active support to dictators and was trying to ramp down support in the Yemen war. Now even the pretension for human rights has evaporated. Trump expresses his admiration for strongman dictators. This is encouraging dictators and oppressors around the world. Oppressors around the world who might have at least feared the U.S. just a little now see its welcoming embrace. But while the U.S. is becoming more attractive to dictators it is becoming increasingly despised by the oppressed around the world. As a result, the U.S. is dissipating its soft power at an alarming rate. It will take the U.S. years, if not decades, to regain some measure of trust around the world.

Q: Why did this affair develop in the first place?

A: Because MBS simply could. He also wanted to send a message to all of his would-be opponents. Don’t oppose me and get any ideas about plotting my overthrow. I am ruthless and I have Trump’s backing in anything I do. It was a move to consolidate power. This would never have happened if there was not a normal MBS-Kushner relationship and Trump’s active support of strongmen. MBS overstepped. He has this ‘special’ relationship with Kushner and Trump and he thought he could do anything. After all they have given him intelligence about his relatives so that he could arrest those that might have plotted hos overthrow. They continue to support him in Yemen as he commits daily atrocities killing dozens at a time. So why would they care if one journalist was killed? And knowing full well Trump’s dislike for journalists. But he does not understand the U.S. media and politics. Khashoggi was a columnist for a renowned American Newspaper, the Washington Post, and such a public abduction was sure to cause a backlash.

Q: How should have Saudi Arabia and the U.S. handled this tragedy from the beginning?

A: As I have said before. I believe that MBS ordered this murder and it was obvious to those who know the workings of Saudi Arabia. The King could have said that his son’s orders of simple abduction had been misunderstood. His son would be replaced as crown prince and he could have appointed another crown prince who he trusted would step down in a year or two. MBS would have taken a back seat and then restored to power. Trump should not have come out saying that the King and MBS had strongly denied any accusations and he believed them. He should have simply said that he knew nothing and he like anyone else would await the disclosure of facts. Instead the Saudis have produced lie after lie and Trump had supported them because they lied strongly!

Q: What should they do now?

A: They should be more truthful and transparent. They have to realize that MBS must step down, at least for a while. There is no other way out. The quicker they realize this the better. In this way they could avoid what Saudi justice demands for all those involved—beheading in public.

Q: Will we ever know the complete truth about who ordered this horrible murder and all the details of how it was carried out?

A: Yes. The evidence will eventually leak out. How long will it take? That I don’t know. The Saudis will not reveal the truth. Erdogan could do it. But he has his own agenda, to extract financial support from Saudi Arabia and their regional concessions in Qatar and Syria, and to get U.S. sanctions lifted. But who knows, Erdogan may surprise us all and do what is right. We need this in the Middle East. Doing the right thing. To stand up for justice, what is at the core of Islamic teachings. My own feeling is that someone from Saudi Arabia, an enemy of MBS, could eventually produce the evidence. And because of this possibility, MBS will crack down even more domestically and increase his intrusive domestic spying and suppression.

Q: How will tragedy affect the Middle East region?

A: I think that the Qatar embargo will be slowly lifted. Israeli-GCC cooperation will be further solidified. The so-called “Middle East Strategic Alliance” (MESA) or Arab NATO, which will encompass the GCC and Egypt will be formed but will be more or less a front for the United States in the Persian Gulf. GCC-Israeli cooperation will expand. Israel will be more emboldened to attack targets in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Iran will be accused by the GCC and the U.S. for anything that goes wrong in the region. There will be increased terrorism in the region and around the world. Sadly, the genocide in Yemen will continue until tens of thousands starve to death or if MBS’ full role in Khashoggi’s murder is revealed and his support in the West curtailed.

Saudi Arabia Has to Be Stopped And This Time It May Get Stopped

By Andre Vltchek 

It appears that the KSA has crossed all lines of decency, if there were ever any.

It crossed them not because it has been brutally killing tens of thousands of innocent people in Yemen, not even because it keeps sponsoring terrorists in Syria, (and in fact all over the world), often on behalf of the West. Not even because it is trying to turn its neighboring country, Qatar, from a peninsula into an island.

The crimes against humanity committed by Saudi Arabia are piling up, but the hermit kingdom (it is so hermit that it does not even issue tourist visas, in order to avoid scrutiny) is not facing any sanctions or embargos. These are some of the most barbaric crimes committed in modern history, anywhere and by anyone. Executing and then quartering people, amputating their limbs, torturing, bombing civilians.

But for years and decades, all this mattered nothing. Saudi Arabia served faithfully both big business and the political interests of the United Kingdom first, and of the West in general later. That of course includes Israel, with which the House of Saud shares almost a grotesque hatred towards Shi’a Islam.

And so, no atrocities have been publicly discussed, at least not in the Western mass media or by the European and the US governments,while weapons, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, have been arriving into the KSA, and the oil, that dark sticky curse, kept flowing out.

Was Riyadh enjoying total impunity? Definitely!

But all this may soon stop, because of a one single man, Mr. Jamal Khashoggi or more precisely, because of his alleged tragic, terrifying death behind the walls of theSaudi Consulate in the city of Istanbul.

According to the Turkish authorities, quoted by The New York Times on October 11, 2018:

“Fifteen Saudi agents arrived on two charter flights on Oct. 2, the day Mr. Khashoggi disappeared.”

Supposedly, they brutally murdered Mr. Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen, and then they used sawmills to severe his legs and arms from the body.

All this, while Mr. Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancé, HaticeCengiz, was waiting for him on a bench, in front of the consulate. He went in,in order to take care of the paperwork required to marry her. But he never came back.

Now the Turkish nation is indignant.

Ten years ago, even one year ago, everything would have been, most likely, hushed up. As all mass murders committed by the Saudis all over the world were always hushed up. As was hushed up the information about the Saudi royal family smuggling drugs from Lebanon, using their private jets – narcotics thatare clouding senses and are therefore used in combat zones and during terrorist attacks.

But now, this is the end of 2018. And Turkey is not ready to tolerate an atrocity by an increasingly hostile country; an atrocity committed in the middle of its largest city. For quite some time, Turkey and the KSA are not chums, anymore. Turkish military forces were already deployed to Qatar several months ago, in order to face the Saudi army and to protect thesmall (although also not benign) Gulf State from possible attack and imminent destruction. In the meantime, Turkey is getting closer and closer to Iran, an archenemy of Saudi Arabia, Israel and US.

It has to be pointed out that, Mr. Khashoggi is not just some common Saudi citizen – he is a prominent critic of the Saudi regime, but most importantly, in the eyes of the empire, a correspondent for The Washington Post.

Therefore, his death, if it is, after all, death, could not be ignored, no matter how much the West would like the story to disappear from the headlines.

President Trump remained silent for some time, then he became “concerned”, and finally Washington began indicating that it could even take some actions against its second closest ally in the Middle East. The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been ‘cultivated’ both by Washington and other Western powers, but now he may actually fall from grace. Is he going to end up as Shah Pahlavi of Iran? Not now, but soon, or at least ‘at some point’? Are the days of the House of Saud numbered?

*

The Washington Post, in its editorial “Trump’s embrace emboldened Saudi Crown Prince’, snapped at both the ‘Saudi regime’ (finally that derogatory word, ‘regime’ has been used against the House of Saud) and the US administration:

“Two years ago it would have been inconceivable that the rulers of Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, would be suspected of abducting or killing a critic who lived in Washington and regularly wrote for the Post – or that they would dare to stage such operation in Turkey, another US ally and a NATO member. That the regime now stands accused by Turkish government sources of murdering Jamal Khashoggi, one of the foremost Saudi journalists, in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate could be attributed in part to the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s 33-year-old de facto ruler, who has proved as ruthless as he is ambitious. But it also may reflect the influence President Donald Trump, who has encouraged the Crown Prince to believe – wrongly, we trust – that even his most lawless ventures will have the support of the United States.”

“Wrongly, we trust?” But Saudi Arabia and its might are almost exclusively based on its collaboration with the global Western ‘regime’ imposed on the Middle East and on the entire world, first by Europe and the UK in particular, and lately by the United States.

All terror that the KSA has been spreading all over the region, but also Central Asia, Asia Pacific, and parts of Africa, has been encouraged, sponsored or at least approved in Washington, London, even Tel Aviv.

The Saudis helped to destroy the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and then the socialist and progressive Afghanistan itself. They fought Communism and all left-wing governments in the Muslim world, on behalf of the West. They still do.

Now both the West and the KSA are inter-dependent. The Saudis are selling oil and buying weapons, signing ‘monumental’ defense contracts with the US companies, such as Lockheed Martin. They are also ‘investing’ into various political figures in Washington.

The current alleged murder of a journalist triggered an unusual wave of soul-searching in the Western media. It is half-hearted soul searching, but it is there, nevertheless. On October 2018, the Huffington Post wrote:

“By directing billions of dollars of Saudi money into the U.S. for decades, Riyadh’s ruling family has won the support of small but powerful circles of influential Americans and courted wider public acceptance through corporate ties and philanthropy. It’s been a solid investment for a regime that relies heavily on Washington for its security but can’t make the same claims to shared values or history as other American allies like Britain. For years, spending in ways beneficial to the U.S. ― both stateside and abroad, such as its funding Islamist fighters in Afghanistan to combat the Soviet Union ― has effectively been an insurance policy for Saudi Arabia.”

It means that the White House will most likely do its best not to sever relationships with Riyadh. There may be, and most likely will be, some heated exchange of words, but hardly some robust reaction, unless all this tense situation ‘provokes’ yet another ‘irrational’ move on the part of the Saudis.

The report by Huffington Post pointed out that:

“One of the few traditions in American diplomacy that Trump has embraced wholeheartedly is describing weapons sales as jobs programs. The president has repeatedly said Khashoggi’s fate should not disturb the $110 billion package of arms that Trump says he got the Saudis to buy to support American industry. (Many of the deals were actually struck under Obama, and a large part of the total he’s describing is still in the form of vague statements of intent.)

Keen to keep things on track with the Saudis, arms producers often work in concert with Saudi Arabia’s army of Washington lobbyists, congressional sources say.”

This is where the Western reporting stops short of telling the whole truth, and from putting things into perspective. Nobody from the mainstream media shouts: ‘There is basically no independent foreign policy of Riyadh!’

Yes, oil buys weapons that are ‘giving jobs to men and women working in the US and UK factories’, and then these weapons are used to murder men, women and children in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere; they threaten Iran, Qatar and several other countries. Oil and Western support also help to recruit terrorists for the perpetual wars desired by the West, and they also help to build thousands of lavish mosques and to convert tens of millions of people in Southeast Asia, Africa and elsewhere to Wahhabism, which is an extreme, Saudi-UK religious dogma. (My book “Exposing Lies of the Empire”.contains important chapter on this topic – “The West Manufacturing Muslim Monsters: Who Should Be Blamed for Muslim Terrorism”).

*

Despite what many in the West think, there is hardly any love for Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. The KSA is sometimes supported, out of ignorance or religious zeal, by such far-away Muslim countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, but as a rule, not bythose who live ‘in the region’.

Many if not most in the Arab countries havealready had enough of Saudi arrogance and bullying, by such monstrous acts like the war against Yemen, or implanting/supporting terrorists in Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere, or by recent the de facto kidnapping of the Lebanese Head of State, by moral hypocrisy and by turning holy Muslim sites into business ventures with vulgar commercialism all around them, and the clear segregation of the rich and poor.

Many Arabs hold Saudi Arabia responsible for turning an essentially socialist and egalitarian religion into what it has become now, of course with the determined support from the West, which desires to have an obedient and rituals-oriented population all over the Muslim world, in order to control it better, while plundering, without any opposition, its natural resources. Saudi Arabia is a country with some of the greatest disparities on earth: with some of the richest elites on one hand, and widespread misery all around the entire territory. It is an ‘unloved country’, but until now, it has been ‘respected’. Mainly out of fear.

Now, the entire world is watching. Those who were indignant in silence are beginning to speak out.

All of us, writers and journalists all over the world, are hoping that Mr. Khashoggi is alive, somewhere, and that one day soon he will be freed. However, with each new day, the chances that it will happen are slimmer and slimmer.

If he was killed by Saudi agents, Mr. Khashoggi’s death may soon fully change both his country and the rest of the Middle East. He always hoped for such change. But most likely, he never imagined that he would have to pay the ultimate piecefor it.

This time, the Saudi rulers hoped for a breeze, which would disperse the smell of blood. They may now inherit the tempest.

Andre Vltchek is philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He’s a creator of Vltchek’s World in Word and Images, a writer of revolutionary novel Aurora and several other books.  His latest books: are Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, andThe Great October Socialist Revolution. He writes especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook.”
https://journal-neo.org/2018/10/30/saudi-arabia-has-to-be-stopped-and-this-time-it-may-get-stopped/

Saudi Savages

Listening to music while chopping up Khashoggi — alive!

By Yusuf Dhia-Allah

The Saudi consulate in Istanbul doubled as slaughterhouse, at least on October 2. The butchers from Riyadh had come with a bone-cutting saw. They had an important mission to accomplish: grab Jamal Khashoggi and cut him into pieces. Audio recordings of the macabre ritual on the study table of the Saudi Consul General leaked to the Turkish media reveal that Khashoggi was chopped up while he was still alive.

The lead chopper — Salah Muhammad al-Tubayqi — was part of the 15-member squad (their names and photos were published in the Turkish daily, Sabah) that had arrived earlier in the day at the consulate. Identified as a 20-year veteran and head of forensic evidence in the Saudi general security department, al-Tubayqi put on earphones and listened to music as he dismembered Khashoggi with a bone saw. He advised other members of the squad to do the same in order to drown out Khashoggi’s screams. Was he listening to Beethoven as he went about his macabre ritual?

“When I do this job, I listen to music. You should do [that] too,” al-Tubayqi was recorded as saying, according to the Middle East Eye quoting a Turkish source (October 17). First, Khashoggi’s fingers were chopped. Obviously they had to go first because he used them to type “nasty” reports published in the Washington Post. Next, his arms were sawed off. Turkish media reports say that people downstairs in the consulate could hear Khashoggi’s screams. The consul general Muhammad al-‘Utaybi, perhaps a little faint-hearted, was also told to leave his office!

Barbarism is in Najdi Bedouins’ DNA. It has also been reported that after completing the chopping task that took 11 minutes from which Khashoggi took seven minutes to die, all 15 members went to the consul general’s house for dinner. That they could enjoy dinner after indulging in such a gruesome act speaks volumes about their demonic nature. Perhaps, people would now get a better sense of the Saudi mentality.

Let us get some basic facts straight: Khashoggi was no revolutionary or champion of freedom of speech or even basic freedoms. For decades he served the Saudi royals faithfully acting as advisor to Turki bin Faysal, the Kingdom’s long-time intelligence chief. He also headed many media outlets, acting as apologist for the regime. Khashoggi had also denounced Shaykh Nimr al-Nimr as an “outlaw” and applauded his beheading in January 2016.

Such sycophancy, however, did not guarantee his safety. With thousands of academics and religious scholars imprisoned by the impetuous crown prince Muhammad bin Salman (MbS), Khashoggi fled the country settling in the US.

The Washington Post, which is basically a deep-state/CIA front organization, provided him space for a regular column. He started to express mild criticism of Bin Salman’s policies but this was quite tepid and not meant to rock the Saudi boat. Even this, however, was not acceptable to the crown prince.

There were probably other reasons as well but first let us be clear that Bani Saud deserve no sympathy. Those responsible for the ghastly murder should be held accountable. The Saudi admission on October 19 that Khashoggi was murdered in the consulate after a fistfight broke out is a crude attempt to deflect responsibility from Bin Salman. It was Donald Trump who first floated the theory of “rogue killers” being responsible. Soon thereafter, he dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Riyadh and Turkey (October 16-17) for private consultations and issue instructions on how to sweep the matter under the rug (damage control).

An artist’s rendering of what a Saudi apology — not to Khashoggi’s family, the field of journalism, or the world, but to the US and Israel — means in real-world terms. The White House’s tepid response to the whole incident suggests that it was a setup for a trillion dollar shakedown in order to bolster the US economy and thereby improve President Trump’s chances for re-election in 2020. Should the clown prince accept culpability, hush money will have to be paid (mostly to Washington); should he deny responsibility and refuse to pay up, then the message has been sent: you are on a fault line that we control, and we will replace you with a more pliable prince who accedes to our security guarantees and any strings that come attached. This scenario seems to concur with the news leaked by the Turkish ambassador to Lebanon about the CIA setting up the assassination and dismemberment of Khashoggi.

The Saudis announced that 18 people had been arrested and were being investigated. Ahmad ‘Asiri, deputy head of intelligence, and Sa‘ud al Qahtani, a senior guard in Bin Salman’s security detail, were dismissed from their posts. Saudi media also reported on October 20 that an investigation had been launched.

Appearing on Fox News (October 21) Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Khashoggi’s killing was a “terrible mistake” and the people arrested had been involved in a “cover-up,” hence the earlier Saudi denials about the journalist’s death. Much of the world (except the White House) as well as human rights organizations dismissed Saudi explanations as an attempted “whitewash.”

Both Turkey and the US — the latter eagerly protecting the Najdi Bedouins — are exploiting this to further their own interests. This is shocking even by their own low standards. Trump does not want to jeopardize the $110 billion Saudi arms deal; he wants — and will get — billions more from the Saudis for giving MbS, now dubbed “Mr. Bone Saw,” a clean bill of health.

Turkey is demanding billions in Saudi investment and recognition as leader of the Muslim world. Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan’s pledge on October 20 to reveal the “naked truth” about the murder on October 22 turned out to be a rehash of stuff already known. Did he back down from revealing more details under pressure from the US?

There is also speculation that the Saudis may have increased the bribe amount; nonetheless he appears dissatisfied with the reported $5 billion offered so far. He wants many more billions before he would destroy the audio and videotapes to exonerate Bin Salman of Khashoggi’s murder.

On October 21, the Turkish daily Yeni Safak reported that Bin Salman had spoken to Khashoggi minutes before the latter was killed at the consulate. Mahir ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Mutrib’s cell phone was used. Mutrib is a member of Saudi intelligence and is close to Bin Salman. There was also a Skype conversation between Sa‘ud al-Qahtani (another Bin Salman guard) and Khashoggi at which the former told the journalist to return to the Kingdom. When Khashoggi refused, al-Qahtani ordered the team to bring the “head of this dog to Riyadh.” This seems to have been obeyed and Mutrib is believed to have taken Khashoggi’s body parts in his luggage back to Riyadh (he did not go through security screening because he carries a diplomatic passport).

There has, however, been major fallout from the ghastly murder. Saudi stocks plunged 7% losing some $50 billion on October 14. Leading Western investors and executives pulled out of the “Davos in the Desert” conference (October 23–25) in Riyadh. It would have been too much even for the Western bloodsuckers to be shaking hands with MbS while Khashoggi’s blood was still dripping from his hands.

Any speculation that this would lead to Bin Salman’s removal from power is premature. He is too closely tied to Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. The hope is that the hoopla over the Khashoggi murder would soon subside. It should have by now, but for the relentless campaign by the Washington Post and the CIA that want to squeeze a lot more money from the Saudis.

What the Khashoggi saga has resulted in is that Bin Salman has been greatly weakened although it would be unrealistic to expect that he would be forced to resign or that there will be major changes in Saudi policy. No more should be expected than for Bin Salman to maintain a low profile for a while until the issue blows away. Such are the ways of modern diplomacy and politics.

Saudi dissident: Trump, Riyadh worked hand in glove in Khashoggi murder

A protester dressed as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and another dressed as US President Donald Trump stand outside the White House in the wake of the disappearance of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 19, 2018. 

An exiled Saudi physicist and political dissident said US President Donald Trump had been informed by intelligence agencies of a plot to kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi and colluded with Riyadh in his murder.

Mohammad al-Massari made the remarks in a program hosted by former British Labour MP George Galloway, footage of which was posted online, Press TV reported.

He revealed Trump’s involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, citing leaks from telephone conversations between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, and exiled Palestinian politician, Mohammed Dahlan, obtained by a high-ranking Saudi official.

Massari said that Trump has been “lying” in whatever comment he has made regarding Khashoggi’s case as a copy of the Turkish-intercepted video was sent to him shortly after the critic was murdered.

Trump had been receiving daily intelligence briefings by the CIA and FBI since late 2017 about a plot to kill or abduct Khashoggi, but he never warned the journalist about what was to happen, he added.

“And there is also a story from high up in the Saudi ranks that MBS insists that his (Khashoggi’s) head should be cut and delivered to him so he can enjoy his revenge,” he said.

Massari also revealed backup plans, including one announced by the Saudi Interpol, in which Khashoggi’s body double would depart Turkey for Lebanon and get apprehended there as an international fraudster.

He, however, stressed that the scenario went wrong when Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, phoned her uncle, who is an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and took police to the scene.

The Western governments, which are at odds with Trump over several issues such as the taxes imposed by his administration, are all aware of the developments and they will “take out their swords” against the US president once the 2018 midterm elections on November 6 are over, he claimed.

Khashoggi vanished at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

Riyadh initially claimed that the journalist had walked out of the mission.

Later, however, it said that Khashoggi had been accidentally killed in a “fistfight” with a Saudi hit squad. Most recently, the kingdom’s public prosecutor said that the murder had been “premeditated” by Saudi operatives.

Riyadh has denied any involvement by the crown prince in the killing, but it has been unveiled that some members of the Saudi hit squad were from bin Salman’s personal security staff.

Elsewhere in the TV program, Massari was asked about the motive behind the killing as Khashoggi was not in fact a member of the Saudi opposition, and only a critic who pushed for reforms inside the regime.

He said that Khashoggi, a media adviser to former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal, was actually a “chocolate opposition” and “critical of the regime in the sense like someone who wants to have reforms.”

Khashoggi, he added, was “a treasure of information, connections and contacts” and had “a memoir full of expositions, scandals and crimes.”

The memoir was not published during Khashoggi’s lifetime because it put him at risk, Massari said, alleging that he had got his hands on five pages of that memoir.

The Saudi Arabian Model: Blueprints for Murder and Purchasing Arms

by Dr Binoy Kampmark 

It reads like a swaying narrative of retreat.  A man’s body is subjected to a gruesome anatomical fate, his parts separated by a specially appointed saw doctor – an expert in the rapid autopsy – overseen by a distinctly large number of individuals.  Surveillance cameras had improbably failed that day.  We are not sure where, along the line, the torturers began their devilish task: the diligent beating punctuated by questions, followed by the severing of fingers, or perhaps a skipping of any formalities.  One Turkish investigator sniffing around the Saudi consulate in Istanbul saw such handiwork “like a Tarantino film.”

The result was clear enough: the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi went into the Saudi embassy on October 2 and never came out alive.  (Even an attempt of the gathered crew of death to procure a Khashoggi double was noted.)

For aspiring authoritarians, the Saudi state is a model instructor.  First came blanket denial to the disappearance: the Saudi authorities had no idea where the journalist had gone after October 2.  On October 18, Riyadh officially acknowledged Khashoggi’s death.  By October 21, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had come to the conclusion that this had, in fact, been murder, and a mistake. “This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had”.

Then, an improbable story of a fist fight developed through the media channels. (When one has to kill, it is best to regard the enemy as inappropriately behaved when they dare fight back.)  In the presence of 15 Saudi operatives, this was all richly incredulous – but the Kingdom does specialise in baffling and improbable cruelties.

It was clear that distancing was fundamental, hence the cultivation of the “rogue” theory, with Saudi operatives taking a merry trip off the beaten path.  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was happy to pour water on the suggestion. “We have strong evidence in our hands that shows the murder wasn’t accidental but was instead the outcome of a planned operation.”  It had been executed “in a ferocious manner”.

The Turkish president has, however, danced around the issue of ultimate state sanctioned responsibility.  Neither King Salman, nor Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have been publicly outed in any statements as either showing awareness of the killing or ordering it.  Prince MBS and his father are happy to keep it that way, severing their links with the killing as assuredly as the killers had severed the journalist’s fingers.  This is evidenced by the Crown Prince’s own labelling of the act as a “heinous crime that cannot be justified”.

The Saudi Public Prosecutor has also decided to move the case from one of accidental killing (fist fights will do that sort of thing) to one of planned murder.  A bit of cosmetic housecleaning has been taking place (another authoritarian lesson: look busy, seem engaged with heavy concern): 18 people have been arrested and two advisers sacked by the Saudi state.  The Crown Prince, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, has chaired the first meeting of a committee established to reform the country’s intelligence services.

This authoritarian blueprint also implies a staying power in the face of other states who see Saudi Arabia as cash cow and security partner.  The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a rich appetite for foreign arms, a point not missed on the weapons makers of the globe.  Some attrition is bound to take place: certain countries, keen to keep their human rights credentials bright and in place, will temporarily suspend arms sales.  Others will simply claim disapproval but continue leaving signatures on the relevant contracts of sale.

Some ceremonial condemnations have been registered.  Members of the European Parliament votedupon a non-binding resolution on Thursday to “impose an EU-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia.”  Germany, temporarily concerned, has suspended arms sales to the House of Saud, with Chancellor Angela Merkel deeming the Khashoggi killing “monstrous”.   Canada’s Justin Trudeau briefly pondered what to do with a lucrative defence contract with Riyadh worth $12 billion, only to then step back.

The Canadian prime minister did acknowledge that the killing of Khashoggi “is something that is extremely preoccupying to Canadians, to Canada and to many of our allies around the world” but has not made good any threats.  His predecessor has become the ideal alibi.  “The contract signed by the previous government, by Stephen Harper, makes it very difficult to suspend or leave that contract.”  Cancellation would lead to penalties which, in turn, would affect the Canadian tax payer.  How fortunate for Trudeau.

France, the United Kingdom and the United States remain the three biggest suppliers of military hardware to the kingdom, a triumvirate of competitors that complicates any effective embargo.  Which state, after all, wants to surrender market share?  It’s a matter of prestige, if nothing else.  President Donald Trump’s reaction is already clear: a suitably adjusted lid will be deployed to keep things in check till matters blow over; in the meantime, nothing will jeopardise a $110 billion arms deal.  Business with a theocracy can be patriotic.

The French angle has been reserved and coldly non-committal.  “Weapons exports to Saudi Arabia are examined in this context,” claimed foreign ministry deputy spokesman Olivier Gauvin, meaning that his country’s arms control policy was made on a case-by-case basis.  For France, keeping Riyadh in stiff opposition to Tehran’s regional ambitions has been a matter of importance in its Middle Eastern policy for decades, a point reiterated by President Emmanuel Macron in April.  And the Kingdom pays French arms exporters well: between 2008 and 2017, Saudi Arabia proved the second biggest purchaser of French arms (some 11 billion euros), with 2017 being a bumper year with licenses coming to 14.7 billion euros.  Riyadh can expect little change there.

Britain’s Theresa May, in the tradition of elastic British diplomacy (condemnation meets inertia), has insisted that her government already has the appropriately stringent rules on arms exports, another way of shunning any European resolution that might perch on human rights.  Such strictness evidently does not preclude the eager oil sheiks of Riyadh, though Britain’s foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt did suggest the Khashoggi killing, should it “turn out to be true” would be “fundamentally incompatible with our values and we will act accordingly.”  Such actions are bound to be symbolic – much money has been received by the British arms industry, with earnings of £4.6 billion coming from sales to the Kingdom since the Saudi-led war on Yemen began in 2015.  Sowing death, even if through the good agency of a theocratic power, is lucrative.

The fate of Khashoggi, cruel and ghastly, seems a piddle of insignificance in that light.  “Brexit,” urged Philippe Lamberts, MEP and leader of the Group of the Greens, “must not be an excuse for the UK to abdicate on its moral responsibilities.” That abdication, on the part of Britain and its arms competitors, took place sometime ago.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.

Hypocrisy and this murder most foul

Journalists have died on assignment, caught in the middle of wars and conflicts. But this was not always by accident. They have been targeted by those who did not want witnesses to their foul deeds or to coerce them into silence.

Demonstrators ride the double-decker bus as they attend the Stop The War Coalition protest against the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, war in Yemen and UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London, Britain, October 25 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

Some might recall tank shells fired by US troops at a hotel in Baghdad in which international journalists covering the illegal invasion of Iraq were housed. They might also recall the targeting of the al Jazeera office in Baghdad.

Over the years there have been too many deaths caused by “friendly fire” to recount them all. Sri Lanka’s own journalists have not been free of death threats and death itself. Perhaps the most prominent among them was Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, a critic of powerful elements in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government. Long before that evil deed another journalist and actor Richard de Zoysa was tortured and killed.

Besides being a noted critic of powerful elements in the Rajapaksa government, it was the meticulous manner in which Wickrematunga was executed that pointed a finger at a military-like operation which drew worldwide attention.

Though Wickrematunga’s daylight killing aroused international condemnation it was nothing as gruesome and despicable as the pre-meditated murder early this month of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident Saudi Arabian journalist and columnist for the Washington Post.

Despite all the denials, cover-ups and buck passing, each new day elicits more evidence of the involvement of those close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MbS) and perhaps the Crown Prince himself who, it is alleged, had signed off on the plan to deal with Khashoggi.

It is well-known in domestic and international circles that MbS is de facto ruler. Nothing of significance happens in the desert sands without the knowledge of MbS who was picked by his father King Salman as heir apparent after deposing the then crown prince a few years back.

King Salman would not have had a need to read about court intrigues and palace treachery in Shakespeare’s tragedies and historical plays. Over centuries those desert monarchies would have provided their rulers with sufficient historical dramas on how these autocracies have suppressed their peoples and continue to do so to this day.

But King Salman might have been more circumspect in moving the political chess pieces around had he lent an ear to the words of King Lear: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”

If one were to agree with analysts and Saudi Arabia-based diplomats that the real power lies in the hands of Crown Prince bin Salman then this whole dastardly fiasco over the pre-meditated murder of journalist Khashoggi must ultimately lie at MbS’s door.

This is but one of the nasty diplomatic errors that have roused international ire over Saudi Arabia’s medieval methods still practised in the 21st century and its strenuous attempts to hide a blatant truth of highest-level Saudi complicity.

It has also exposed the hypocrisy of some western nations that present themselves to the world as the moral guardians of human rights and international law.

When the recently named crown prince came closer to the Saudi throne and positioned himself as a great redeemer with so much power in his hands to modernise the autocracy, he was praised in many quarters as the reformer that the oil-rich nation needed to bring it into the 21st century.

So when the relatively young de facto ruler gave women the license to drive vehicles it was hailed as a progressive reform. But in the meantime the same man had jailed activists calling for modernisation and dissidents asking for genuine reform. Dissent is something for which bin Salman has a low tolerance level.

“The greater the power,” wrote Edmund Burke, “the more dangerous the abuse”. As this sad drama unfolds from total denial by Saudi Arabia to death by mistake and now to acceptance of guilt for the killing by a Saudi “hit squad”, those western nations that held the Saudi rulers to their bosom because to them Mammon means more than man, find they cannot extricate themselves from their own hypocrisy.

When news first broke about Khashoggi’s disappearance and suspected death in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul that unpredictable US President Donald Trump was among the first to jump into the fray, covering up for his Saudi friends by blaming some “rogue” elements for killing Khashoggi.

Trump was not interested in getting at the truth. He was only interested in safeguarding his arms deals with the autocrats in that desert kingdom.

Saudi Arabia is America’s No. 1 weapons buyer. Between 2013 and 2017, Riyadh accounted for 18 percent of total U.S. arms sales or about $9 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Yet a closer study reveals that the sales aren’t quite as big as Trump has boasted. The president recently praised Riyadh’s ambitions to buy $110 billion worth of U.S.-made arms. But that money hasn’t come through yet, according to State Department or Defence Security Cooperation Agency announcements.

While Washington has several arms agreements with Riyadh, it is unclear where the $110 billion figure comes from, aside from a potential wish list of future deals.

The UK is another country that has entered into arms deals with the Saudis and is a supplier of weapons used in the on-going conflict in Yemen, one of the poorest nations that is suffering constant bombardment by the Saudi-led coalition that is supported materially by the US and Britain.

British military sales to Saudi Arabia increased by two thirds in 2017 from 2016 — an increase of more than £450m, Sky News reported the other day. The real figure could be much higher as the number of so-called “secret” open licences doubled across the 12 months, from 21 to 44.

Britain issued 126 licences relating to military goods in 2017, with a value of £1.129bn – Department of International Trade figures show.

This is compared to 103 licences relating to military goods in 2016, with a value of £679m.

More than 10,000 people are thought to have died and 22 million people need assistance in Yemen in what the UN says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The hypocrisy of these countries lies in the double standards they employ. The US and Britain have led the charge against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC pressing for international investigations and accountability trials for alleged violations of human rights and international law during the last months of the war against the separatist LTTE.

These countries and Canada have not changed their policies on Sri Lanka and would still like to see international participation in any accountability mechanisms that Sri Lanka would establish at some stage, if at all.

But curiously they have maintained a silence over the Saudi announcement that Riyadh would hold an investigation into the torture and killing of Jamal Khashoggi. And who is going to head this inquiry? Why Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — who many claim is implicated in this heinous crime in which a Saudi national resident in the US was done to death in Turkey in a Saudi Arabian diplomatic mission — and the great upholders of human rights are only ready to wag their fingers at the culprits.

Imagine what would have been the reaction if a similar gruesome murder took place in Sri Lanka. The same western nations that preach their homilies to Sri Lanka about the violation of human rights and individual freedoms would have descended on Colombo with threats of sanctions and other dire consequences.

Yet when Saudi Arabia says it will inquire into its own abhorrent conduct the threats cease, the human rights abuses are forgotten-and possibly forgiven. Why the double standards? Why indeed.

That is all because the oil-rich kingdom has the money, and the Crown Prince apparently holds the purse strings. All the principles that the poorer countries are expected to adhere to and follow are thrown to the four winds when the weapons salesmen go on bended knee to the despots in the desert.

Why has the West not called for an international inquiry into the Khashoggi killing? Why is it the desert despots are permitted to continue with their primitive practices — torturing, killing and dismembering the body without any retributive justice for the guilty and the country’s rulers that seem to have permitted it?

I suppose dismembering the body comes easy for those whose system of justice permits them to sever the hands of some criminal offenders.

But what of those who continuously talk of their contributions to civilisation and civilised conduct? Why have they taken a vow of silence except to utter the pro-forma condemnations and continue with their business dealings?

Money, somebody once said, is the root of all evil. The petrodollars that make the world go round.