Khashoggi murder: The crisis is far from over
(Baonghean.vn) - Earlier this week, eight defendants were sentenced for their involvement in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Despite efforts to prove their efforts, Riyadh still faces a wave of criticism from the international community, claiming that they covered up the masterminds of the assassination and exempted those close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Worst diplomatic crisis
Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Washington Post columnist, was murdered in October last year at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. According to Turkish officials, the late journalist was strangled and his body dismembered by a group of 15 people inside the Saudi consulate. His body parts have not been found.
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| Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in October 2018. Photo: AFP |
The incident stunned Saudi Arabia's Western allies, quickly spiraling into one of the kingdom's worst diplomatic crises since the September 11 attacks and damaging the reputation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler in Riyadh.
Eleven individuals have been charged in the case, most of whom remain unidentified. Five defendants have been sentenced to death, three others face a total of 24 years in prison, and the rest have been acquitted, Deputy Public Prosecutor Shalaan bin Rajih Shalaan told reporters on December 23. He said an appeal is still possible, adding: “The prosecutor’s investigation has shown that the murder was not premeditated,” but instead occurred spontaneously.
According to AFP, Riyadh has described the assassination as a “rogue” operation, but both the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its special envoy to the United Nations have flatly accused Crown Prince Mohammed of involvement in the incident. This accusation, of course, has been vehemently denied by the oil-rich kingdom.
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| Security camera footage of journalist Jamal Khashoggi entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Photo: CNN |
Both Ahmed al-Assiri and Saud al-Qahtani are members of the inner circle with close ties to Crown Prince Mohammed.
Saudi prosecutors say Deputy Intelligence Director Ahmed al-Assiri oversaw Khashoggi’s murder, while the US Treasury Department has said that Saud al-Qahtani, a media official in the royal court, was “part of the planning and execution” of the operation that led to the journalist’s death. Qahtani was investigated but not convicted due to “insufficient evidence,” while Assiri was convicted but eventually exonerated on similar grounds. Both figures are members of the inner circle with close ties to Crown Prince Mohammed, and were formally dismissed after the scandal. However, according to Western sources, only Assiri has appeared in court.
Mixed opinions
Saudi Arabia's verdict in this serious case has received a warm welcome from the US, with a US State Department official commenting that it is "an important step in bringing to justice those responsible for this horrific crime." The diplomat also added that Washington is urging Riyadh to increase transparency and hold all those responsible to account. Salah Khashoggi - son of the ill-fated journalist, currently residing in Saudi Arabia, also spoke out in support of the verdict, saying that justice had been served.
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| Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince (right) meets relatives of Jamal Khashoggi in Riyadh weeks after the journalist's murder. Photo: SPA |
However, this rather soft stance is not the main trend, other opinions mostly give a harder view. Agnes Callamard - the special rapporteur of the United Nations criticized the above sentence as a "mockery", saying that the direct perpetrators were guilty, sentenced to death, but the masterminds not only went free, but were almost never mentioned in the investigations or trials.
Türkiye, for its part, also condemned the verdict, which it called “scandalous,” saying that those who ordered the murder had been “exonerated.” They said the verdict highlighted Saudi Arabia’s efforts to quickly end the crisis, as the country tries to rebuild its image on the international stage ahead of next year’s G20 Summit in Riyadh.
"This verdict does not inspire confidence that responsibility has been fulfilled."
Similarly, Fred Ryan of the Washington Post criticized the “sham trial,” adding that “those ultimately responsible” in the Saudi leadership had escaped accountability. Meanwhile, HA Hellyer, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute, said: “If the court’s verdict means the Khashoggi case is over, they are unlikely to succeed. Much of the international community believes that the Saudi leadership was behind the murder and this verdict does not inspire confidence that it has done its job.”
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| Turkish police investigate at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, where journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, October 15, 2018. Photo: AFP/TTXVN |
In addition to concerns about the verdict, public opinion is also stirring up questions about who was the mastermind behind the assassination. Qahtani, who led social media campaigns against critics of Saudi Arabia, has not appeared in public since the shocking incident, and his whereabouts are still the subject of much speculation. Assiri, however, was claimed by many defendants in court to have acted on his orders, calling him the “mastermind” of the operation.
The 9 court sessions in Riyadh, with the participation of representatives of the international community as well as the victim's family, seem to have not yet provided a satisfactory answer. Certainly, Saudi Arabia cannot close this case as soon as they expected, and will have to make more efforts and be more transparent to regain their image in the eyes of public opinion and prestige in the international arena, especially when the G20 Summit is very close.