It was October 2, 2018 when a man walked into the Saudi Arabian consulate to collect some documents he needed for his impending marriage. He had been there earlier on September 28, and had been told to allow a few days for them to prepare the needed proof of divorce from an earlier marriage.
So there he was. His Turkish fiancée had accompanied him and he asked her to wait outside as it would only take a minute or two. She waited and waited and… waited. Jamal Khashoggi never came out.
What went on inside is a matter of dispute but US intelligence prepared a report which should have been released but was illegally blocked by the Trump administration. Mr. Trump is no doubt grateful for the help he has had over two decades from various Saudi royals in addition to the business thrown his way at his various properties. “I love the Saudis,” says Donald Trump and he had kept the report under wraps. It has now been released by the new Biden administration.
All the same, grisly details of the killing including dismemberment soon emerged because in this tragic episode, with an element of farce, it was soon evident that the Turks had bugged the consulate. There is speculation as to how the perpetrators dispersed of the corpse but they themselves have been identified. Turkish officials also claim to know that they acted on orders from the highest levels of the Saudi government. They arrived on a private jet and left just as abruptly.
The egregious killing led to the UN appointing a Special Rapporteur, Agnes Callamard. She concluded it to be an “extra-judicial killing for which the state of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible.” She added, there was “credible evidence” implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other senior officials.
Now the US report. Intelligence agencies conclude Jamal Khashoggi was killed by a Saudi hit squad under the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. They add that the latter has had unitary control over Saudi security and intelligence organizations and thus it was “highly unlikely” an operation of this nature would have been possible without Prince Mohammed’s authorization.
Mr. Biden’s reaction is plain. Although the Crown Prince is the de facto ruler with his father the King’s acquiescence, Mr. Biden has not talked to him. He called the king and emphasized the importance placed on human rights and the rule of law in the US.
President Biden is also re-evaluating US arms sales to the Kingdom with a view to limiting them to defensive weapons — a difficult task as many can be used for both, a fighter-bomber for example.
There are also calls for sanctions against the Crown Prince directly but Biden has ruled that out. Saudi Arabia is after all the strongest ally of the US in the region, and no president wants to jeopardize that relationship. Moreover, the US has done the same sort of thing often enough; the last prominent assassination being that of the senior Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, by the Trump administration.