DETAILS of how Saudi Arabia deployed an online army of trolls to harass Jamal Khashoggi have emerged as questions continue to swirl over the journalist’s mysterious death.
Saudi officials say the dissident journalist and Washington Post columnist died during a brawl at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Turkish officials accuse Riyadh of carrying out a state-sponsored killing and dismembering Khashoggi’s body. Police have been scouring a a rural village an hour south of Istanbul after searches on the consulate and the residence of the Saudi consul-general.
Australia has joined Canada, the European Union, Germany, France, Britain and the United Nations in demanding clarity into Khashoggi’s death.
The Saudi journalist was a high-profile critic of his country’s leaders, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
He went missing after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
Khashoggi’s killers could have dumped his remains in Belgrad Forest near Istanbul, and at a rural location near the city of Yalova, a one-hour drive south of Istanbul, the officials said.
“The investigations led to some suspicion that his remains may be in the city of Yalova and the Belgrad forest, police have been searching these areas,” one of the officials said.
They added a “farm house or villa” may have been used to dump the remains.
Turkish police have also searched the Saudi consulate and the home of the Saudi consul general’s residence in Istanbul, where they left with bags and boxes.
Saudi Arabia said Khashoggi died during a “brawl” inside the consulate on October 2.
Eighteen nationals have reportedly been arrested in connection with the suspected murder, and five of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s top aides — including intelligence official Ahmad al-Assiri and royal court media adviser Saud al-Qahtani — have been sacked.
Khashoggi, who recently wrote for the Washington Post, had penned columns critical of Prince Mohammed.
Turkish officials in Ankara vowed to reveal all the details of its two-week inquiry as US President Donald Trump said he was unsatisfied with Saudi Arabia’s response.
The European Union, Germany, France, Britain and the UN have also demanded clarity into the missing journalist’s death.
A Saudi public prosecutor revealed on state television on Saturday a primary investigation into Khashoggi disappearance confirmed he was dead.
“The discussions between Jamal Khashoggi and those he met at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul … devolved into a fistfight, leading to his death,” the public prosecutor said.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expresses deep regret at the painful developments that have taken place in this case and affirms the commitment of the authorities in the Kingdom to bring the facts to the attention of the public and to hold accountable all those involved.”
According to state TV, those responsible then tried to cover up the death.
Missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Picture: Facebook.Source:Facebook
Mr Trump vowed “severe punishment” should the United States find Saudi Arabia responsible for the death of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi — but he doesn’t intend to back down on a lucrative arms deal with the kingdom.
He said it was “a good first step” that Saudi Arabia had identified those allegedly responsible for Khashoggi’s death in Turkey.
“It’s a big step. It’s a lot of people involved,” Mr Trump said after a roundtable at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.
“I think it’s a very important first step and it happened sooner than people thought it would happen.”
“We’ll be talking to them. We do have some questions.”
Mr Trump pledged unspecified “severe punishment” should there be Saudi involvement in the disappearance of Khashoggi, who walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 and never came out.
But Mr Trump said he didn’t want to step away from a major arms deal with Saudi Arabia, a major US ally and arms customer, as it would hurt American manufacturers.
“I would prefer if there is going to be some form of sanctions — this was a lot of people they’re talking about,” he said.
“I would prefer we don’t use as retribution cancelled $110 billion worth of work, which means 600,000 jobs.”
Mr Trump also said that sanctions against Saudi Arabia “could be” something he would consider, but that “it’s too early to say” how the US will respond for now.
But not everyone has bought Saudi Arabia’s “latest narrative” about what reportedly happened to Khashoggi. US Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the conservative kingdom’s most vocal defenders in Congress and a close ally of Mr Trump, led the chorus online of those who were “sceptical”.
“First we were told Mr Khashoggi supposedly left the consulate and there was blanket denial of any Saudi involvement,” Mr Graham wrote.
“Now, a fight breaks out and he’s killed in the consulate, all without knowledge of Crown Prince.”
UN Secretary-General spokesman Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply troubled” by the announcement. “The Secretary-General stresses the need for a prompt, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Khashoggi’s death and full accountability for those responsible,” he said.
Surveillance camera footage shows a man previously seen with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage walk toward the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul just before Jamal Khashoggi disappeared from there. Picture: Sabah/ APSource:AP
The man was captured on several CCTV cameras. Picture: Sabah/APSource:AP
Khashoggi’s disappearance has sparked global outrage as the mystery surrounding it deepens.
But there’s one person believed to be at the centre of the scandal who is yet to make any public mention of it: Crown Prince bin Salman. US officials told CNN that the killing could not have been carried out without the knowledge of Prince bin Salman.
Turkish reports say Khashoggi, who had written columns critical of the Saudi government for The Washington Post over the past year while he lived in self-imposed exile in the US, was killed and dismembered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
Khashoggi has not been seen since he entered the consulate on October 2. It’s believed members of an assassination squad with ties to Saudi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are responsible for his death. The Saudis have dismissed those reports as baseless but have yet to explain what happened to the writer.
In Istanbul, a leaked surveillance photo showed a man who has been a member of the Crown Prince’s entourage during trips abroad walking into the Saudi Consulate just before Khashoggi vanished there — timing that drew the kingdom’s heir-apparent closer to the columnist’s apparent demise.
Turkish officials say Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb flew into Istanbul on a private jet along with an “autopsy expert” on October 2 and left that night.
A Turkish newspaper has also reported that the contents of Khashoggi’s Apple Watch recorded his final brutal moments.
It’s believed he gave his phone to his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz before entering the consulate to arrange paperwork for his marriage.
The tape, if it’s authentic, supposedly reveals Khashoggi had his fingers cut off. According to local media, his panicked dying screams could be heard before he was “injected with an unknown drug” and went off the grid.
Despite intense scrutiny on Prince bin Salman, who is suspected of being the mastermind behind the possible killing, he is yet to publicly respond to the accusations. But there have been top secret talks behind close doors.
A US official said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week warned the Saudi crown prince that his credibility as a future leader was at stake. The prince is next in line for the throne held by his elderly father King Salman.
Full story at https://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/the-one-person-who-has-remained-silent-during-saudi-scandal/news-story/06ab93b32c794efc8d8b987feda0c06b
CIA's findings changes nothing. MBS remains an untouchable, always was and always will be. The whole affair will most likely conclude with scapegoats being crucified on his behalf.
CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination!!!!!
The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved in the killing, according to people familiar with the matter.
The CIA’s assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking Mohammed to the operation and complicates the Trump administration’s efforts to preserve its relationship with a close ally. A team of 15 Saudi agents flew to Istanbul on government aircraft in October and killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate, where he had come to pick up documents that he needed for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman.
In reaching its conclusions, the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence. Khalid told Khashoggi, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post, that he should go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so.
It is not clear if Khalid knew that Khashoggi would be killed, but he made the call at his brother’s direction, according to the people familiar with the call, which was intercepted by U.S. intelligence.
Fatimah Baeshen, a spokeswoman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, said the ambassador and Khashoggi never discussed “anything related to going to Turkey.” She added that the claims in the CIA’s “purported assessment are false. We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the primary basis for these speculations.”
The CIA’s conclusion about Mohammed’s role was also based on the agency’s assessment of the prince as the country’s de facto ruler who oversees even minor affairs in the kingdom. “The accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved,” said a U.S. official familiar with the CIA’s conclusions.
The CIA sees Mohammed as a “good technocrat,” the U.S. official said, but also as volatile and arrogant, someone who “goes from zero to 60, doesn’t seem to understand that there are some things you can’t do.”
CIA analysts believe he has a firm grip on power and is not in danger of losing his status as heir to the throne despite the Khashoggi scandal. “The general agreement is that he is likely to survive,” the official said, adding that Mohammed’s role as the future Saudi king is “taken for granted.”
A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment.
Over the past several weeks, the Saudis have offered multiple, contradictory explanations for what happened at the consulate. This week, the Saudi public prosecutor blamed the operation on a rogue band of operatives who were sent to Istanbul to return Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, in an operation that veered off course when the journalist “was forcibly restrained and injected with a large amount of a drug resulting in an overdose that led to his death,” according to a report by the prosecutor.
The prosecutor announced charges against 11 alleged participants and said he would seek the death penalty against five of them.
More at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-concludes-saudi-crown-prince-ordered-jamal-khashoggis-assassination/2018/11/16/98c89fe6-e9b2-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html
Number 11: he loves dismembering journalists.
Seen circulating in various Whatsapp chat groups.......are these photos real or fake???
Well Roy Faggot Ngerng should consider himself lucky he only got sued and not having ended up dismembered.
Sharmine Narwani, a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics is apparently incensed that the murder of a chick journalist received little attention previously, yet such a big uproar erupted over Khashogghi's recent death.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/us/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-journalist-khashoggi.html
Trump Says Saudi Explanation of Journalist’s Death Is Credible
UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skinned Alive: Saudi Killer Squad ‘Cut off Journalist, Jamal Khashoggi’s Fingers One by One, Dissolved Body Parts in Acid’
Jamal Khashoggi. Photo: AP
Jamal Khashoggi had his fingers hacked off one by one by his torturers before he was decapitated and his body was dissolved in acid, according to horrific new reports.
The journalist was allegedly carved up with a bone saw while alive in a horrifying seven-minute execution carried out by a “hit squad” listening to music on headphones.
Evidence suggests the 59-year-old regime critic was tortured to death, dismembered and smuggled out of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in an execution supervised by autopsy specialist Salah Muhammad al-Tubaiqi.
The Saudi “Dr Death” was seen in Istanbul while an agent with a bone-cutter tool was said to be part of a 15-strong kill team.
The team are alleged to have removed the dismembered body in 15 plastic bags before it was dissolved in acid, according to Turkish media reports.
A source told the Washington Post they heard a recording from the writer’s Apple Watch capturing the moment he was allegedly dragged into a study to be drugged and butchered.
Mohammad al-Otaibi, the Saudi Consul in Istanbul, left Turkey just hours before Turkish investigators entered the consul.
Mohammad al-Otaibi. Photo: Reuters
The anonymous source said Khashoggi – a Saudi journalist based in the US – can be heard screaming as he’s dragged from the Consul General’s office to a desk in the other room.
The recording also reveals he had fingers cut off and was told to “shut up” or face being killed, it’s been reported in Turkey.
Yeni Safak, a pro-government newspaper, said the Saudi General Consul Mohammad al-Otaibi could be heard telling those allegedly torturing Khashoggi: “Do this outside, you’re going to get me in trouble.”
The newspaper said one of the Saudi “torturers” replied: “Shut up if you want to live when you return to (Saudi) Arabia.”
Gen al-Otaibi left Turkey on a commercial flight on Tuesday just hours before Turkish investigators entered his residence.
The source told the Middle East Eye: “There was no attempt to interrogate him. They had come to kill him.”
They also said that the 52-year-old’s cries and screams were heard by witnesses downstairs before his body was “cut into pieces”.
It comes as a Turkish official claimed there was evidence Khashoggi had been tortured to death, “cut into pieces” and smuggled out.
The high-level dignitary, who didn’t want to be named, said that police found “certain evidence” of Khashoggi’s slaying at the consulate, without elaborating.
Earlier Donald Trump claimed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “denied all knowledge” of Khashoggi’s mysterious disappearance.
The US President said the crown prince told him an investigation was underway and promised he would get answers surrounding the writer’s fate.
He went on to slam criticism of Saudi Arabia as a case of “guilty until proven innocent” – and compared it to to the allegations of sexual assault surrounding Brett Kavanaugh.
Trump defended what he characterised as efforts to condemn Riyadh over Khashoggi’s disappearance before all the facts were known.
The 59-year-old, who wrote critically about the Saudis for the Washington Post, disappeared on October 2 after travelling to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.
More at http://newsmakersng.com/skinned-alive-saudi-killer-squad-cut-off-journalist-jamal-khashoggis-fingers-one-by-one-dissolved-body-parts-in-acid/