On 2 October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist, was killed by agents of the Saudi government at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Khashoggi was ambushed and strangled by a 15-member squad of Saudi operatives. His body was dismembered and disposed of in a manner that was never publicly revealed. The consulate had been secretly bugged by the Turkish government and Khashoggi's final moments were captured in audio recordings, transcripts of which were subsequently made public.
The New York Times reported in June 2019 that the Saudi government had engaged in an extensive effort to cover up the killing, including destroying evidence. By 16 October, separate investigations by Turkish officials and The New York Times had concluded that the murder was premeditated and that some members of the Saudi hit team were closely connected to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and de facto leader of Saudi Arabia.
After repeatedly shifting its account of what happened to Khashoggi in the days following the killing, the Saudi government admitted on 25 October that he had been killed in a premeditated murder, but denied that the killing took place on the orders of bin Salman. Bin Salman said he accepted responsibility for the killing "because it happened under my watch" but asserted that he did not order it.
In November 2018, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) concluded that bin Salman had ordered the murder. In the same month, the United States imposed sanctions against 17 Saudis over the murder, but did not sanction bin Salman himself. President Donald Trump disputed the CIA assessment, expressed support for bin Salman, stated that the investigation into Khashoggi's death had to continue, and later said "The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region."
The murder prompted intense global scrutiny and criticism of the Saudi government. A report by the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions in June 2019 concluded that Khashoggi's murder was premeditated and called for a criminal investigation by the UN and, because Khashoggi was a resident of the United States, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Saudi prosecutors rejected the findings of the UN investigation and again asserted that the killing was not premeditated.
In January 2019, trials began in Saudi Arabia against 11 Saudis accused of involvement in Khashoggi's murder. In December 2019, following secretive proceedings, three defendants were acquitted; five were sentenced to death; and three others were sentenced to prison. Two of the acquitted defendants, Saud al-Qahtani and Ahmed al-Asiri, were high-level Saudi security officials. The five men sentenced to death were low-level participants and were pardoned in May 2020 by Khashoggi's children. The results of the trial were criticized by Agnès Callamard, then-UN special rapporteur who investigated the murder.
Jamal Khashoggi
Jamal Ahmad Hamza Khashoggi (13 October 1958 – 2 October 2018) was a Saudi journalist, author, and a former general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel. He also served as editor for the Saudi newspaper Al Watan, turning it into a platform for Saudi progressives.
Khashoggi fled Saudi Arabia in June 2017 and went into self-imposed exile in the US. He began to contribute columns to the global opinions section of The Washington Post in September 2017. His work was often critical of the Saudi government and the Saudi royal family, especially Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and he advocated for reform in the country. He opposed the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.
After Khashoggi started writing for The Washington Post, he was harassed via Twitter from pro-regime trolls and bot accounts. It is believed that his harassment was instigated by Saudi royal adviser Saud al-Qahtani, who had been tasked by Crown Prince Mohammed with implementing a zero-tolerance crackdown on dissent on social media. Qahtani was later implicated in Khashoggi's murder.
Just before he was murdered, Khashoggi launched several projects to consolidate opposition to the Saudi regime, counter regime propaganda, and press for reform. One major collaborator was Saudi dissident blogger Omar Abdulaziz, one of the most visible public critics of the Saudi regime abroad. In late September 2018, Khashoggi met with friends in London to discuss his various plans. Khashoggi wrote in his last column, posthumously published, that "what the Arab world needs most is free expression".
Pegasus spyware phone hack
In summer 2018, Abdulaziz's cell phone was infected with a surveillance tool. This was first revealed on 1 October 2018 in a detailed forensic report by Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto project that investigates digital espionage against civil society. Citizen Lab concluded with a "high degree of confidence" that his cellphone was successfully targeted with NSO Group's Pegasus spyware and attributed this infection to an operator linked to "Saudi Arabia's government and security services". NSO's Pegasus, of which Saudi Arabia has emerged as one of its biggest operators, is one of the most advanced spyware tools available. It is designed to infect cell phones without being detected. Among other known cases, Saudi Arabia is believed to have used NSO software to target London-based Saudi dissident Yahya Assiri, a former Royal Saudi Air Force officer, founder of the human rights organisation ALQST and an Amnesty International researcher.
Through their sophisticated spyware attack on Abdulaziz's phone, the Saudi regime would have had a direct line into Khashoggi's private thoughts, and access to hours of conversations between the two men. Abdulaziz recalled: "Jamal was very polite in public, but in private, he spoke more freely – he was very very critical of the crown prince."
On 21 September, eleven days before Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate, he made a declaration of support for The Bees Army. Using the Bee Army's first hashtag "what do you know about bees" he tweeted, "They love their home country and defend it with truth and rights".
On 9 October, one week after his disappearance, The Washington Post published an article in which Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi's fiancée, claimed that he had applied for U.S. citizenship.
On 19 October, the Wilson Center issued a statement saying that they had offered him a fellowship at their International Center for Scholars, located in Washington, D.C.
On 22 October, Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha who researched Arab propaganda and has monitored Saudi Twitter bots for two years, said he had seen a massive surge in pro-regime Twitter activity, and in the creation of troll accounts, since Khashoggi went missing: "There was such a huge spike in October in bot accounts and the use of the hashtags praising the crown prince, it's absurd".
After Khashoggi's murder, the Saudi cyber-operations were the focus of global scrutiny. The Government of Canada started an investigation into those malicious cyberattacks.
In December 2018, Omar Abdulaziz granted CNN access to his text messages with Khashoggi, where the two discussed their sharp criticism and political opposition to Mohammed bin Salman. Abdulaziz filed a lawsuit against an Israeli company, NSO Group Technologies, that allowed his smartphone to be taken over and his communications to be spied on by the Saudi regime.
U.S. intelligence reports
The Washington Post reported on 10 October 2018 that U.S. intelligence intercepted communications of Saudi officials discussing a plan ordered by the Crown Prince Bin Salman, to capture Khashoggi from his home in Virginia. The intercepted communications were regarded as significant because Khashoggi had bought a home in McLean, Virginia, where he lived after fleeing Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi had obtained an O visa – also known as the "genius" visa – which is granted to individuals of "extraordinary ability and achievement" in the sciences, arts, education, and other fields and are recognized internationally. He had applied for permanent residency status, and three of his children were US citizens. As a legal resident of the United States Khashoggi was entitled to protection. Under a directive adopted in 2015, the US intelligence community has a "duty to warn" people – including those who are not US citizens – who are at risk of being kidnapped or killed. This directive was a central aspect of the conversation about the US's response to Khashoggi's disappearance.
According to National Security Agency (NSA) officials, the White House was warned of this threat through official intelligence channels. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats declined to comment on why Khashoggi was not warned. 55 members of Congress demanded in a letter clarity from DNI Dan Coats on what the intelligence community knew about the risk Khashoggi faced before his disappearance and whether American officials attempted to notify him that his life was in danger. In the letter, they sought insight into everything the NSA knows about phone calls and emails from Saudi officials on the Khashoggi case.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a lawsuit against five US intelligence services "seeking immediate release of records concerning U.S. intelligence agencies' compliance or non-compliance with their 'duty to warn' reporter Jamal Khashoggi of threats to his life or liberty". The Committee to Protect Journalists joined the legal effort.
On 16 November, Central Intelligence Agency employees who internally analyzed multiple sources of intelligence concluded that Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's assassination. On 20 November, US president Donald Trump disputed the CIA assessment and stated that the investigation into Khashoggi's death had to continue. The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act required the U.S. intelligence community to share the report on who was responsible for Khashoggi's murder, but the Trump administration refused to release the report.
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines declassified a four-page report on 25 February 2021 and released it the next day, as she had promised to do even before the Biden administration began. As expected, the report blamed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder, which had been the ultimate conclusion of the CIA. Shortly after publication of the report it was replaced by an updated version, from which three names were removed. Following the report, the US announced sanctions on several Saudis involved in the killing, but not on Mohammed bin Salman. Some exiled Saudi dissidents said "they have been put in greater danger" due to the lack of sanctions against Mohammed bin Salman.
Disappearance
Over the course of 2017, the House of Saud appealed to Khashoggi to return to Riyadh and resume his services as a media advisor to the royal court. But he declined in fear that it was a ruse and that upon returning he would be imprisoned or worse. Khashoggi met with crown prince Mohammed's brother Prince Khalid at the Saudi embassy in Washington, in "early 2018 or late 2017". In September 2018 Khashoggi visited the Washington embassy again, to retrieve paperwork for his pending marriage to his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. He tried to complete everything in the U.S. but was instead lured to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey, where his fiancée lived.
Khashoggi's first visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was on 28 September 2018 – where he showed up unannounced. Having divorced his wife, who had remained in Saudi Arabia, he went to the consulate to obtain a document certifying that he was no longer married so he could marry his Turkish fiancée. Before that visit he "sought assurances about his safety from friends in the US" and instructed his fiancée to contact Turkish authorities if he failed to emerge. He received a warm welcome from officials, and was told to return to the consulate on 2 October. "He was very pleased with their nice treatment and hospitality", she later said. On 29 September Khashoggi traveled to London and spoke at a conference. On 1 October Khashoggi returned to Istanbul, and he told a friend that he was worried about being kidnapped and sent back to Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, at around 16:30, a three-person Saudi team arrived in Istanbul on a scheduled flight, checked in to their hotels then visited the consulate, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Another group of officials from the consulate traveled to a forest in Istanbul's outskirts and the nearby city of Yalova on a "reconnaissance" trip. Erdoğan said a "road map" to kill Khashoggi was devised in Saudi Arabia during this time. In the night of 2 October, a 15-member group arrived from Riyadh on two private Gulfstream jets.
On 2 October 2018 CCTV showed the suspected agents entering the consulate around noon. Khashoggi arrived about an hour later, accompanied by his fiancée Cengiz, whom he entrusted with two cell phones while she waited outside for him. He entered the consulate, through the main entrance, at 1:14 pm. As he had not come out by 4 pm, even though the working hours of the consulate were until 3:30 pm, Cengiz contacted the authorities, phoning Khashoggi's friend, Yasin Aktay, an adviser to Erdoğan, reported him missing and the police then started an investigation.
The Saudi government said that he had left the consulate via a back entrance. The Turkish government first said that he was still inside, and his fiancée and friends said that he was missing.
Turkish authorities have claimed that security camera footage of the day of the incident was removed from the consulate and that Turkish consulate staff were abruptly told to take a holiday on the day Khashoggi disappeared while inside the building. Turkish police investigators told the media that the recordings from the security cameras did not show any evidence of Khashoggi leaving the consulate. A security camera was located outside the consulate's front which showed him entering but not leaving, while another camera installed at a preschool opposite the rear entrance of the consulate also did not show him leaving.