The
four-page report confirmed the
long-suspected view that the 35-year-old
future king had a personal hand in the
violent and premeditated murder of one of
his most prominent critics, a columnist and
former Saudi insider who was living in exile
in the US and used his platform to decry the
prince’s crackdown on dissent.
Friday’s release of the assessment was
expected to be accompanied by further
actions from the Biden administration, which
are expected to be unveiled by the State
Department.
Bloomberg reported that the administration
has identified 76 Saudis who may be subject
to sanctions under what it is calling its
new “Khashoggi policy”, which would impose
visa restrictions on individuals who are
believed to have acted on behalf of a
foreign government and engaged in serious
“extraterritorial counter-dissident
activities”. It is not clear whether Prince
Mohammed will be on the list.
The
White House was also, according to a Reuters
report, considering the cancellation of arms
deals with
Saudi Arabia that pose human rights
concerns.
The
partially-redacted
assessment, which was released by the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence and
relied heavily on information gathered by
the CIA, said the agencies assessed that
“Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman approved an operation in Istanbul,
Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist
Jamal Khashoggi.”
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It
based the assessment on the prince’s
“control of decisionmaking in the kingdom,
the direct involvment of a key adviser and
members of [the prince’s] protective detail
in the operation, and [his] support for the
using violent measures to silence dissidents
abroad, including Khashoggi”.
The US
intelligence agencies’ assessment – which
was released around 9pm Saudi time – also
found that the prince’s “absolute control”
of the kingdom’s security and intelligence
organisations made it “highly unlikely” that
Saudi officials would have carried out an
operation like Khashoggi’s murder without
the prince’s approval.
Included in the assessment were several
bullet points that contributed to the
agencies’ final assessment, including that
Prince Mohammed had “probably” fostered an
environment in which aides were afraid that
they might be fired or arrested if they
failed to complete assigned tasks,
suggesting they were “unlikely to question”
the prince’s orders or undertake sensitive
tasks without his approval.
The
report pointed to the fact that the
15-member hit squad that arrived in Istanbul
worked for or were associated with the Saudi
Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the
Royal Court – which at the time was led by
Saud al-Qahtani, a close adviser to the
prince who claimed publicly in 2018 that he
did not make decisions without the prince’s
approval.
The
team also included a subset of the Saudi
royal guard, known as the Rapid Intervention
Force, which reported only to Prince
Mohammed.
“Although Saudi officials had pre-planned an
unspecified operation against Khashoggi we
do not know how far in advance Saudi
officials decided to harm him,” the report
concluded.
While
Prince Mohammed has previously denied
ordering the killing or having any knowledge
of it, the damning picture portrayed by the
new report raises serious new questions
about his future as the Saudi heir.
The
revelation comes more than two years after
Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul on a mission to retrieve papers
that would allow him to marry his Turkish
fiancee,
Hadice Cengiz, who has since emerged as a
fierce advocate for justice for her late
partner.
Cengiz
did not immediately comment on the report
but
tweeted out a photo of Khashoggi.
While
Khashoggi had been assured by Saudi
officials that he would be safe inside the
consulate’s walls, grisly details later
emerged – pieced together through recording
and other evidence gathered by Turkish
authorities – that described how a team of
Saudi agents, who had arrived in Istanbul on
state-owned planes for the intended purpose
of killing the journalist – subdued, killed
and then dismembered Khashoggi using a bone
saw. In one recording, a close ally of
Prince Mohammed referred to the journalist
as a “sacrificial lamb”.
The
decision to release the report and expected
move to issue further actions represents the
first major foreign policy decision of Joe
Biden’s presidency, months after he vowed on
the presidential campaign trail to make a
“pariah” out of the kingdom. The White House
has said
it is seeking to “recalibrate” its
relationship with the oil-rich nation,
in a major departure from the close
relationship the crown prince, who is known
as MBS, had with Biden’s predecessor, Donald
Trump, and Trump’s adviser and son-in-law,
Jared Kushner.
The
former president defended and brushed aside
the findings of his own intelligence
agencies even after it became widely known
through media reports that the CIA had
concluded with a medium- to high-degree of
confidence that Prince Mohammed had approved
the murder. Trump was reported to have
bragged to the Washington Post reporter Bob
Woodward that he had protected the crown
prince from congressional scrutiny, telling
Woodward: “I saved his ass.”
The
declassified US intelligence assessment was
released after it was mandated by Congress.
The Trump administration had ignored the law
but the Biden administration signalled early
on that it would be willing to release the
document.
Ron
Wyden, the Democratic senator from Oregon
who authored the law that forced the release
of the report, said in a statement that
America was sending the message that
“lawlessness won’t stand”.
“By
naming Mohammed bin Salman as the amoral
murderer responsible for this heinous crime,
the Biden-Harris administration is beginning
to finally reassess America’s relationship
with Saudi Arabia and make clear that oil
won’t wash away blood,” Wyden said.
He
added that there was “still far more to do
to ensure the Saudi government follows
international laws” and called for the crown
prince to suffer “personal consequences”,
including financial, travel, and legal
sanctions.
Its
publication follows years of lobbying by
Cengiz and other human rights advocates who
have said that Saudi Arabia was never held
accountable for the murder.
Saudi
officials initially denied that Khashoggi
had been harmed in the consulate, and had
tried to create the impression using a body
double wearing Khashoggi’s clothes that the
59-year-old had left the building.
Eventually, officials in the kingdom
acknowledged Khashoggi had been killed but
blamed the murder on a “rogue operation”.
The
release of the US report could have
significant repercussions for the crown
prince, though most analysts agreed that it
was not immediately clear who might replace
him following a years-long campaign by the
future king to target and imprison his most
likely political rivals, including the
former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef.
While
the killing initially tarnished the crown
prince’s reputation, Trump’s staunch support
of the Saudi heir, even in the wake of the
wake of the murder and media reports that
said US intelligence officials believed
“MBS” had a hand in the killing, ultimately
helped to rehabilitate his image, including
with business leaders and politicians and
heads of state across Europe.
Saudi
prosecutors put 11 unnamed officials on
trial in what was largely seen as a sham
proceeding, and later reduced the death
sentences of five of the men who were
convicted of killing the dissident to
20-year prison terms.