Following the disappearance of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the kingdom came up with three separate and contradictory explanations for what had happened. The court verdict in Riyadh follows the final version that the murder and dismemberment were the work of rogue officials.
Saudi authorities have announced that five people have been sentenced to death following the trial, while three others were jailed for a total of 24 years and a further three were found not guilty.
The identities of the men found guilty were not given out. We know, of course, of one name that was not going to appear – Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The heir to throne has been accused by, among others, the CIA and other Western intelligence services, of ordering the killing of the writer who had become a vocal and persistent critic of his rule. He has denied any involvement while saying said he “full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia”.
Three officials, two of them close to the crown prince, who have been implicated in the killing are also missing from the conviction list.
The Saudi public prosecutor’s office maintains that there was not enough evidence to charge Saud al-Qahtani, formerly one of the most senior advisers to the crown prince, who is suspected of being on the telephone to the killers while the butchery of the journalist was being carried out. Ahmed al-Assiri, the deputy head of the intelligence service and the kingdom’s spokesman on the Yemen war, was acquitted by the court. Mohammed al-Otaibi, the Saudi consul in Istanbul in whose building the assassination was carried out, was also found not guilty.
The trial began in January with nine sessions held behind closed doors. Representatives of the Turkish government, five permanent members of the UN Security Council and some human rights groups were allowed to attend, but the media was banned from the proceedings and there is no record publicly available of the evidence that was laid out on how the journalist was lured to a trap and eliminated.
The journalist had been directed by the Saudi officials to go to the country’s consulate to collect documents he would need for his forthcoming wedding to his fiance Hatice Cengiz. The kingdom claimed at first that he had been given the necessary paperwork and had then departed. It soon emerged that one of the hit team had put on Khashoggi’s clothes and gone for a walkabout to try and show that he had left alive. This led to the second explanation that there was an altercation in the consulate that had led to Khashoggi being killed accidentally. When that failed to withstand scrutiny, there was yet another explanation that the assassination was carried out by rogue agents of the Crown without official sanction.
Bottom line: the hitmen are guilty, sentenced to death. The masterminds not only walk free, they have barely been touched by the investigation
Shalaan al-Shahlaan, the Saudi deputy attorney general, insisted that no evidence has been discovered of premeditation. He had maintained in November 2018 that the murder was ordered by the head of a “negotiations team” sent by the deputy intelligence chief to bring Khashoggi back to the kingdom “by means of persuasion” or, if that failed, “by force”.
The verdict led to immediate accusations and recriminations. Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur, tweeted: “Bottom line: the hitmen are guilty, sentenced to death. The masterminds not only walk free, they have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial.”
Christophe Deloire, the secretary general of Reporters Without Borders commented: “When Saudis sentence five to death for Khashoggi’s murder, we fear that it is a way to silence him for ever and conceal the truth.”
Amnesty International said in a statement: “This verdict is a whitewash, which brings neither justice nor the truth for Jamal Khashoggi and his loved ones. The verdict fails to address the Saudi authorities’ involvement in this devastating crime or clarify the location of Jamal Khashoggi’s remains. Given the lack of transparency from the Saudi authorities, and in the absence of an independent judiciary, only an international, independent and impartial investigation can serve justice.”
A report by Ms Callamard in June concluded that the death of Khashoggi was an act of “extra-judicial killing” for which the Saudi state was responsible, and that there was credible evidence warranting further investigation that high-level officials, including the crown prince, were individually liable for happened.
There were multiple reports last November that the CIA had concluded that Prince Mohammed ordered the death of Khashoggi. Asked about it at the time, Donald Trump responded: “We’re taking a look at it. You know, we also have a great ally in Saudi Arabia. They give us a lot of jobs and a lot of business and economic development. They have been a truly spectacular ally in terms of jobs and economic development.”
Subsequently the US administration refused a request from congress that the murder be investigated and more information provided by the White House. Democrats claimed that Mr Trump was in breach of the Magnitsky Act (named after a Russian whistleblower who died in a Moscow prison in 2009) but an administration statement said the president “maintains his discretion to decline to act on congressional committee requests when appropriate”.
Two of the suspects, Qahtani and Otaibi, are under US sanctions. But there is little likelihood that any others, or the Saudi state, will face penalties, financial or otherwise.
Soon after Khashoggi’s murder, Saudi Arabia held a financial summit in Riyadh, “Davos in the Desert”. Many heads of states and CEOs stayed away. Most of them are back, keen as ever to do business with Saudi Arabia. Recently a member of the Saudi royal family told the Wall Street Journal that when the trial of the murder suspects ends and “when a few heads get chopped off, [foreign investment] will come back.”