Mohammed bin Salman Approved Khashoggi's Murder - U.S. Intelligence Reports Reveals

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, according to a declassified report released by the Biden administration on Friday.

The report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), said the crown prince, the kingdom’s de facto leader, “approved an operation … to capture or kill” Khashoggi.

“We base this assessment on the Crown Prince's control of decisionmaking in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman's protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince's support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi,” the report said.


“Since 2017, the Crown Prince has had absolute control of the Kingdom's security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince's authorization,” it continued.

The four-page report’s release was highly anticipated and is part of President Biden’s strategy to “recalibrate” the relationship with Saudi Arabia, where he has committed to emphasize democratic values and human rights in Washington’s dealings with Riyadh.

“For too lengthy, the United States did not maintain Saudi Arabia responsible for the brutal homicide of journalist, dissident, and Virginia resident Jamal Khashoggi,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in declaration Friday. “I’m encouraged to see the new administration taking steps to rectify that with the aid of releasing this lengthy-late congressionally mandated record into his killing.”

The document turned into launched the day after Biden spoke with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman. A White House announcement on the call did now not mention Khashoggi or the record, but said the president “affirmed the importance the United States places on generic human rights and the rule of thumb of regulation.”

On Wednesday, Biden stated he had study the report, with out elaborating.

Asked Friday whether Biden raised Khashoggi with the king, White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to intricate on the decision, but confused to reporters that officers “at each stage” have publicly raised worries about human rights abuses.

Khashoggi was killed by way of a Saudi hit squad, which includes a bone noticed-wielding forensic health practitioner, in October 2018 while he become at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to achieve files for a wedding license. Turkish government have stated he changed into strangled soon after coming into the consulate and dismembered.

The document's launch Friday turned into paired with an announcement by using Secretary of State Antony Blinken of visa restrictions towards seventy six Saudi individuals believed to be engaged in threatening dissidents remote places, such as but now not restricted to the ones related to Khashoggi’s murder.

“While the US stays invested in its relationship with Saudi Arabia, President Biden has made clear that partnership have to mirror U.S. Values,” Blinken stated in a assertion. “To that end, we've got made honestly clean that extraterritorial threats and assaults by using Saudi Arabia towards activists, dissidents, and reporters must give up. They will no longer be tolerated by the US.”

Called the “Khashoggi ban,” the visa restrictions may be imposed on any individual believed to be directed through a foreign authorities to significantly harass and threaten people perceived as dissidents.

The Treasury Department additionally introduced sanctions on Ahmad Hassan Mohammed al Asiri, Saudi Arabia’s former deputy head of the General Intelligence Presidency, who the department stated changed into “assigned to murder” Khashoggi and become the “ringleader” of the operation.

Treasury also slapped sanctions on Saudi Arabia’s Rapid Intervention Force, Crown Prince Mohammed’s elite personal defensive detail whose individuals have been a part of the hit squad. But the sanctions notably did now not goal the crown prince himself.

The file on Friday listed the names of 21 individuals U.S. Intelligence officers have “excessive self assurance … participated in, ordered, or have been otherwise complicit in or liable for” Khashoggi’s murder “on behalf of” Crown Prince Mohammed. Still, it says the US can’t affirm if the people knew the operation could bring about the journalist’s death.

The document highlighted that participants of the hit team protected officials linked to the Saudi Center for Studies and Media Affairs, whose chief publicly said in 2018 he did now not make choices without the crown prince’s approval.

The team also protected seven members of Crown Prince Mohammed’s elite non-public protecting element, who the U.S. Officials “decide would no longer have participated inside the operation against Khashoggi with out Muhammad bin Salman's approval,” the file stated.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who represents the Virginia district where Khashoggi resided, known as for a "reevaluation" of the U.S. And Saudi dating inside the wake of the crown prince's responsibility.

“This document lays the blame for the brutal homicide of Jamal Khashoggi, my constituent, at once at the ft of the Crown Prince. Saudi Arabia must be held responsible, and that demands a cautious and whole re-evaluation of the US courting with the Kingdom," Connolly said in a declaration. "It is a dark stain at the Trump management that they have been willing to preserve this report from the American human beings a good way to shield its relationships with the Crown Prince over and above fundamental American values and Jamal’s lifestyles itself.”

Sarah Leah Whitson, govt director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a U.S. Agency based by means of Khashoggi shortly earlier than his murder, said the record’s release allows affirm formerly said information.

“At minimum, certainly this records is truly simply in addition affirmation of what we all understand — and this is that Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal, our founder,” she stated.

Whitson said DAWN is possibly to consist of the ODNI report in its personal civil in shape against the crown prince, which turned into filed with Khashoggi’s fiancee Hatice Cengiz inside the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia and seeks financial damages.

Whitson added the record’s launch serves as a warning towards such brazen violent movements.

“It is an critical warning and we hope an critical measure of deterrence towards other despots who suppose they are able to cross round the world killing people they don’t like in overseas countries,” she stated.

Biden has already taken actions moving the U.S. Courting with Saudi Arabia, in part over Khashoggi’s homicide and supported with the aid of Congress. They encompass finishing U.S. Aid for the Saudi-led offensive in Yemen, in addition to relevant guns sales to the dominion.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, entreated the Biden management to comply with the report’s release with “critical repercussions in opposition to all the accountable parties it has identified, and also reassess our dating with Saudi Arabia.”

“We should make sure that if overseas governments target newshounds surely for doing their jobs, they may be no longer proof against serious repercussions and sanctions, due to the fact restoring self assurance in American management calls for we act according with the values that have long set America aside,” Schiff stated. “The management have to take in addition steps to diminish the United States’s reliance on Riyadh and make stronger that our partnership with the Kingdom isn't always a clean take a look at.”

The State Department on Friday is reportedly expected to announce further restrictions on offensive weapons to the dominion.

Still, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby pressured after the report’s launch that Saudi Arabia “stays a strategic associate within the area.” He declined to comment on the ODNI file itself, describing it as out of doors the purview of the Defense Department.