Jamal Khashoggi

• 1. Introduction

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  Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and dissident, now has a street in Washington, D.C. that carries his name. When the sign was unveiled on the 15th of June 2022, the ceremony began at 1:14 p.m. That minute was chosen on purpose, because it marks the time he was last seen before his death. Phil Mendelson, president of the District of Columbia Council, said of the street: "a constant reminder, a memorial to Jamal Khashoggi's memory that cannot be covered up." The sign stands on the road that holds the Saudi embassy. How did a columnist with long ties to the Saudi royal family end up with a memorial outside its embassy? Who was he before he became a symbol, and why did powerful people want him silenced? And when the evidence arrived, what did governments in Riyadh, Ankara and Washington actually do with it?

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• 2. Afghanistan and Bin Laden

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  Jamal Ahmad Hamza Khashoggi was born in Medina on the 13th of October 1958, into a family with famous names. His grandfather was Muhammad Khashoggi. His uncle was Adnan Khashoggi, and his first cousin was Dodi Fayed. He finished his schooling in Saudi Arabia and then crossed the Atlantic, earning a Bachelor of Business Administration from Indiana State University in 1982.

  His first jobs were not in news. From 1983 to 1984 he managed a region for Tihama Bookstores. He then wrote for the Saudi Gazette and served as an assistant manager at Okaz from 1985 to 1987. Between 1987 and 1990 he reported for several Arab dailies and weeklies, including Asharq Al-Awsat, Al Majalla and Al Muslimoon. In 1991 he became managing editor and acting editor-in-chief of Al Madina, a post he held until 1999. He then served as deputy editor-in-chief of Arab News until 2003.

  During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Khashoggi also served with the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Agency. He may have worked with the United States as well. In those years and the 1990s he came to know Osama bin Laden, whom he interviewed several times, usually at Tora Bora. Columnist David Ignatius later argued that Khashoggi could not have travelled with the mujahideen without tacit support from Saudi intelligence. That agency was coordinating aid to the fighters in cooperation with the CIA. Khashoggi himself criticized Prince Salman, then governor of Riyadh, for unwisely funding Salafist extremist groups that were undermining the war.

  In 1995 the Saudi government sent him to Khartoum with a specific mission. He was to persuade bin Laden to give up jihad. Crown Prince Abdullah promised that bin Laden would get back his Saudi citizenship and be readmitted to the kingdom. Al Arabiya reported that the talks ran across three meetings. In the first, bin Laden said he had moved on to peaceful agricultural and construction projects, but he would not let Khashoggi record him. In the second, he turned belligerent and called for a campaign to drive the United States out of the Arabian Peninsula. In the third, he refused to condemn violence publicly unless Saudi Arabia offered concessions such as a full pardon or an American withdrawal.

  Khashoggi said he was very much surprised in 1997 to see bin Laden turn to radicalism. He was reportedly the only non-royal Saudi who knew of the royals' intimate dealings with al-Qaeda before the September 11 attacks. He distanced himself from bin Laden afterward. Writing about the hijackers, he described them as "15 Saudis who were misled into hijacking four planes that fine September day." When SEAL Team Six killed bin Laden in 2011, Khashoggi wrote on Twitter: "I collapsed crying a while ago, heartbroken for you Abu Abdullah." He added that bin Laden had been "beautiful and brave in those beautiful days in Afghanistan before you surrendered to hatred and passion." His Arab News post had ended in 2003, the year he took over Al Watan.

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• 3. Editor and Exile

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  Khashoggi became editor-in-chief of the Saudi daily Al Watan in 2003, and he lasted less than two months. The Saudi Ministry of Information dismissed him in May 2003. He had allowed a columnist to criticize Ibn Taymiyyah, an Islamic scholar who lived from 1263 to 1328. Ibn Taymiyyah is considered an important figure of Wahhabism. The episode built his reputation in the West as a liberal progressive.

  After the dismissal he went to London in voluntary exile and became an adviser to Prince Turki Al Faisal. He later served as media aide to the prince while Turki was Saudi ambassador to the United States. In April 2007 he returned to Al Watan as editor-in-chief. His second stint ended on the 17th of May 2010. The paper had run a column by the poet Ibrahim al-Almaee that challenged basic Salafi premises. Al Watan said he had resigned to focus on his personal projects. It is thought that he was actually pushed out because officials disliked articles critical of the kingdom's harsh Islamic rules.

  He kept his ties to Saudi elites, including people in the intelligence apparatus. In 2015 he launched a satellite news channel called Al-Arab from Bahrain, since Saudi Arabia does not allow independent news channels inside its borders. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal backed it, and it partnered with Bloomberg Television. Bahrain shut it down after fewer than 11 hours on air. Khashoggi also commented on MBC, the BBC, Al Jazeera and Dubai TV. From June 2012 to September 2016, Al Arabiya regularly published his opinion columns. In December 2016, the Independent reported that Saudi authorities had banned him from publishing or appearing on television for criticising US President-elect Donald Trump.

  He moved to the United States in June 2017, kept writing for Middle East Eye, and in September 2017 began writing for The Washington Post. That same month, Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Turki Aldakhil that he would go after Khashoggi "with a bullet." The prince felt Khashoggi's work was tarnishing his image. Saudi Arabia reportedly ran a troll farm in Riyadh, employing hundreds of people, to harass him and other critics. Edward Snowden accused the Saudi government of using the Pegasus spyware to monitor his phone. A different hack surfaced later. On the 22nd of April 2018, an Emirati government agency used Pegasus on the phone of Hanan Elatr, then his fiancée.

  The Spectator said he had almost two million Twitter followers and was the most famous political pundit in the Arab world. On the 2nd of June 2018 he married Elatr in an Islamic ceremony in Alexandria, Virginia. In 2018 he also founded a political organisation, Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, to promote democratic movements in the Arab world. Not every connection was tidy. An email from a Wikistrat executive named Oren Kesler said Khashoggi worked for that firm, though Kesler later denied it. Wikistrat eventually admitted it was true. In December 2018 the Post disclosed that a Qatar-funded organization had at times shaped his columns. It had proposed topics and given him research.

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• 4. Contested Convictions

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  In a Washington Post column on the 3rd of April 2018, Khashoggi made a case for change. Saudi Arabia, he wrote, "should return to its pre-1979 climate, when the government restricted hard-line Wahhabi traditions." He wrote that women should have the same rights as men. He also said Saudis "must find a way where we can accommodate secularism and Islam, something like what they have in Turkey." He supported some of the crown prince's reforms, such as allowing women to drive. Yet he condemned the arrests of women's rights advocates, including Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Yousef.

  On Yemen, he was blunt. He wrote that the longer the "cruel war" lasted, the more permanent the damage would be, as Yemenis faced poverty, cholera and water scarcity. In August 2018 he said the crown prince was right to free the country from ultra-conservative religious forces. But he was wrong, Khashoggi added, to advance a "new radicalism" just as intolerant of dissent. His criticism ranged well beyond Riyadh. He said Egypt had jailed 60,000 opposition members. He also faulted Barack Obama for not rejecting the coup that removed President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. In February 2016 he wrote that Iran was "redrawing the map of the region" through sectarian militias.

  His own past was argued over as fiercely as his columns. CNN described a journalist who evolved from an Islamist in his twenties to a more liberal position by his forties. According to Egypt Today, he admitted he had joined the Muslim Brotherhood at university and said he was not alone. David Ignatius described him in his early twenties as a passionate member. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said those ties did not seem to involve any links to extremism.

  The New York Times wrote that by his fifties his relationship with the Brotherhood was ambiguous. Several Brothers felt he was always with them, while many of his secular friends would not have believed it. The Spectator went further, claiming he remained a political Islamist until the end. Donald Trump Jr. promoted the idea that Khashoggi was a "jihadist." After the killing, Vanity Fair reported that several House Republicans had mounted a whisper campaign to discredit him over those same ties. Irish Times journalist Lara Marlowe offered a different frame. If Christian democracy was possible in Europe, she wrote, why could Arabs not be ruled by Muslim democracy?

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• 5. The Consulate

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  On the 2nd of October 2018, Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect paperwork for his planned marriage. No CCTV recorded him leaving. His fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, was a 36-year-old Ph.D. candidate at a university in Istanbul. They had met in May 2018 at a conference in the city. News reports soon claimed he had been dismembered with a bone saw inside the building, and he was declared a missing person.

  On the 15th of October, Saudi and Turkish officials inspected the consulate. Turkish officials found evidence that Khashoggi had been killed and that chemical experts had tampered with evidence. The Saudis did not know that Turkish intelligence had bugged the consulate. Both the planning and the execution were recorded. On the 31st of October, Istanbul's chief prosecutor said Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered, then dismembered. Turkish officials suggested his body may have been dissolved in acid. The recording was reported to capture his last words: "I can't breathe." The Turkish government later released it.

  News reports from early October drew on communications intercepted by the United States. They suggested Mohammed bin Salman had given direct orders to lure the journalist to the consulate. The aim was reportedly an illegal abduction and return to Saudi Arabia. In November 2018 the CIA concluded that the crown prince had ordered the assassination. In March 2019, Interpol issued Red Notices for twenty people wanted in connection with the murder.

  On the 19th of June 2019, after a six-month investigation, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published a 101-page report. It held the State of Saudi Arabia responsible for the "premeditated extrajudicial execution" of Khashoggi. The report was issued by Agnès Callamard, a French human rights expert and UN Special Rapporteur. Callamard would return to the case in January 2021, when Washington promised to release its own findings.

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• 6. Courtrooms in Riyadh and Istanbul

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  Saudi Arabia first denied the death and claimed Khashoggi had left the consulate alive. Eighteen days later, it said he had been strangled during a fistfight. Eighteen Saudis were arrested, including the team of fifteen sent to confront him. On the 25th of October, the Saudi attorney general contradicted the fistfight account by saying the murder was premeditated. On the 16th of November 2018, the government held Islamic funeral prayers in absentia in Madinah and at the Great Mosque of Mecca.

  In a CNN interview on the 20th of June 2019, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, called the murder "gruesome" but dismissed the UN report as "flawed." In September 2019, Mohammed bin Salman said he bore responsibility "because it happened under my watch," while denying any prior knowledge of the plot. On the 23rd of December 2019, a Saudi court sentenced five officials to death and three others to 24 years in prison. Amnesty International's Lynn Maalouf called the verdict a "whitewash," noting the trial was closed to the public and independent monitors. On the 22nd of May 2020, Khashoggi's children pardoned the five officials, so they would be set free rather than executed. On the 7th of September 2020, eight people tied to the murder received sentences of 7 to 20 years. Saudi Arabia did not release their names.

  In Turkey, the Istanbul prosecutor's office announced on the 25th of March 2020 an indictment against 20 suspects. Two were accused of instigating the killing: Ahmad Asiri, then deputy head of Saudi general intelligence, and Saud al-Qahtani, a royal court adviser. The other 18 were accused of carrying it out. Named among them were the intelligence operative Maher Mutreb, the forensic expert Salah al-Tubaigy and the royal guard member Fahad al-Balawi. King Salman had dismissed al-Qahtani and Asiri after the death, but Saudi Arabia refused to extradite anyone. The indictment relied on phone records, entry and exit logs for Turkey, and presence at the consulate. It also used witness statements and analysis of Khashoggi's own phone, laptop and tablet.

  Cengiz spoke when the trial opened on the 3rd of July 2020, describing "a great betrayal and deception." On the 28th of September 2020 prosecutors prepared a second indictment, against six Saudi officials. The trial was held in absentia because none of the accused were in Turkey. Then, on the 7th of April 2022, a Turkish court ordered the trial transferred to Saudi Arabia. Many suspects had already been acquitted there. Human rights advocates and lawyers involved in the case criticized the decision.

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• 7. Washington's Response

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  Six weeks after the killing, the CIA leaked its conclusion that the crown prince had ordered it. On the 20th of November 2018, President Donald Trump rejected that conclusion. He said, "it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event - maybe he did and maybe he didn't," and added, "our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." Two days later, he denied that the CIA had reached a conclusion at all. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, accused him of lying about the findings. Congress tried without success to make the administration reveal what intelligence agencies had found.

  On the 13th of December 2018, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution holding bin Salman personally responsible. The same day, it voted 56-41 to end US military aid to the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. That was the first-ever Senate invocation of the War Powers Act. The House narrowly blocked any similar resolution for the rest of the year. In June 2019, when Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met bin Salman to discuss military matters, they did not raise the killing. A week later at the G20 summit in Osaka, Trump shook the crown prince's hand. In a book released in January 2023, Never Give an Inch, Pompeo called Khashoggi only an "activist" and said he was "cozy with the terrorist-supporting Muslim Brotherhood."

  Bob Woodward's book Rage records Trump boasting of saving bin Salman's reputation, with the words "I saved his ass." Trump pointed to hundreds of billions of dollars Saudi Arabia had invested in US military equipment and training. On the 11th of March 2020, the State Department's 2019 human rights report blamed Saudi government agents for the death. It also said the kingdom did not punish those accused of serious abuses. On the 20th of August 2020, the Open Society Justice Foundation sued in the Southern District of New York. It demanded the release of the Khashoggi report under the Freedom of Information Act. An earlier suit in January 2019 had sought all records on the killing from the CIA and six other federal agencies.

  In January 2021, Avril Haines, awaiting confirmation as Director of National Intelligence, said "We will follow the law" when Senator Ron Wyden asked about declassifying the report. Agnès Callamard called it "the one essential missing piece of the puzzle." A declassified summary came out in February 2021, and the United States imposed sanctions and travel bans on several Saudi security officials. It did not target bin Salman directly. Weeks before Biden visited Saudi Arabia in 2022, an advisory board urged declassifying the full report.

  The legal fight narrowed to one question. Could the crown prince be sued in a US court? On the 17th of November 2022, the Biden administration ruled that he had immunity as a foreign head of state. He had been designated a Prime Minister, which lawyer Keith Harper said was an attempt to "manipulate the court's jurisdiction." On the 6th of December 2022, Judge John D. Bates dismissed Cengiz's lawsuit. He also dismissed Saud al-Qahtani and Ahmed al-Assiri from it on jurisdictional grounds.

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• 8. Memorials

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  One month after Khashoggi disappeared, Amnesty International put up a sign reading "Khashoggi Street" outside the Saudi embassy in London. In May 2023, the Los Angeles city council voted to name "Jamal Khashoggi Way" for the stretch of Wilshire Boulevard in front of the Saudi consulate building. The dedication took place on the 2nd of October 2023, the fifth anniversary of the killing. A neighboring intersection became "Jamal Khashoggi Square," with a sign calling him "A journalist and advocate for democracy slain by the Saudi government."

  On the 11th of December 2018, Time magazine named Khashoggi, together with other journalists persecuted for their work, its Person of the Year. Time called him a "Guardian of the Truth." In 2019, the Jamal Khashoggi Award for Courageous Journalism was created. It gives up to US$5,000 to each of five investigative projects.

  Filmmakers have also taken up the case. A Showtime documentary, Kingdom of Silence, was released on the 2nd of October 2020, the second anniversary of his death. That year, the Oscar-winning director Bryan Fogel made The Dissident, about the killing and the role of Mohammed bin Salman. It took eight months to find a streaming service, and it was finally released by an independent company.

  Khashoggi's family has also borne the cost. With his wife Rawia al-Tunisi he had four children: sons Salah and Abdullah and daughters Noha and Razan. All four were educated in the United States, and two are US citizens. After the assassination, all four were banned from leaving Saudi Arabia.

  His own words found a home beyond the reach of Saudi censors. Many of his banned articles are now available in the Uncensored Library, a space designed to circumvent censorship laws.

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