The US on Friday for the first time publicly accused Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of approving the gruesome murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but stopped short of targeting the powerful heir apparent.
The prince, who is the de facto ruler of the US ally and oil provider, “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” said an intelligence report newly declassified by US President Joe Biden’s administration.
The report said that given Prince Mohammad’s influence, it was “highly unlikely” that the 2018 murder could have taken place without his approval.
Photo: Reuters
The killing also fit a pattern of “the crown prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad.”
Khashoggi, a US resident and critic of Prince Mohammad who wrote for the Washington Post, was lured to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, then killed and dismembered.
The US Department of the Treasury announced that it was freezing assets and criminalizing transactions with a former Saudi intelligence official as well as the Rapid Intervention Force, an elite unit the report said “exists to defend the crown prince” and “answers only to him.”
Biden on Friday said that “we are going to hold [Saudi Arabia] accountable for human rights abuses. This report has been sitting there, the last administration wouldn’t even release it ... it is outrageous what happened.”
However, the US stopped short of directly targeting the 35-year-old crown prince.
In honor of the slain writer, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the “Khashoggi Act” that would ban entry into the US of foreigners who threaten dissidents or harass reporters and their families, and immediately placed 76 Saudi Arabians on the blacklist.
“We have made absolutely clear that extraterritorial threats and assaults by Saudi Arabia against activists, dissidents and journalists must end. They will not be tolerated by the United States,” Blinken said in a statement.
Blinken, questioned by reporters, said “this is bigger than any one person,” adding that Biden was trying “not to rupture the relationship, but to recalibrate to be more in line with our interests and our values.”
An advocacy group founded by Khashoggi, Democracy for the Arab World Now, called on the US president to impose sanctions on Prince Mohammad — with a number of lawmakers from the Democratic Party also pushing for more action.
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