Episode 88 | Murdered By a Saudi Arabian Hit Squad | Journalist Jamal Khashoggi

In October of 2018, US-based Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was in Istanbul with his fiancee Hatice Cengiz to get a marriage license. To do so they had to visit the Saudi Consulate there in Istanbul. Inside the consulate was a team of hitmen sent by the highest powers of the Saudi Arabian government, with instructions to bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia due to his outspoken criticism of the Government. In the end he was silenced in a most brutal way.

It's such a shocking case and the 'cover-up' and denial by the Saudi's so unbelievable. I love how Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) the leader of Saudi Arabia pretends to know nothing about the hit on Jamal Khashoggi that HE ordered and then has the hit squad tried and sentenced to death. By the way all those that were tried and sentenced including those sentenced to death were 'pardoned' by Khashoggi's children who still live in SA. We can assume they were pressured to do that OR ELSE.
Enjoy! ★

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Transcript

Jamal Khashoggi Murder

Prologue

It’s the early afternoon of October 2nd, 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey. A muezzin is belting out the adhan or call to prayer, it’s enchanting beauty echoes throughout the upscale neighborhood where the Saudi Arabian consulate is located. Journalist Jamal Khashoggi has just arrived with his finacee Hatice Cengiz and is seen by surveillance cameras entering the consulate, and is never seen again.

The purpose of their visit is to sign marriage papers so they can wed. Instead, moments after entering the building, Khashoggi is accosted by a group of Saudi intelligence officials, asked to go into a private room on the second floor, and after refusing is grabbed by the arm and dragged into a backroom.

By 4 pm Khashoggi had still not come out of the consulate, even though working hours were until 3:30 pm. As such, his fiancé contacted the authorities, Khashoggi was reported missing, and an investigation began. 

Their investigation would reveal some horrific truths. Just four days later, the news had made its way around the world – Khashoggi had been killed while inside the consulate, with the Saudi government almost certainly involved.

Just what did Khashoggi do to draw the ire of the Saudi government? How did they know what he was doing over in the US, what he was up to, where he would be? And just how bad was what happened to him in the consulate behind closed doors? (hint: it was pretty bad) 

Act I

On the 18th of September, 2017, Jamal Khashoggi published his first column for the Washington Post, calling out a recent wave of arrests of intellectuals and religious leaders ‘who dare to express opinions contrary to those of [his] country’s leadership’, and how he himself had feared for his job and freedom.

Though still over a year before the actual killing, it may have been on that day that his fate was sealed.

Throughout the vast majority of his career, Khashoggi was known as a man well-accustomed to being on the inside, a well-connected loyalist who had been rewarded for it, a government man through and through. He served with the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Agency, and for decades he was close to the Saudi royal family, even serving as an advisor to the government. 

But starting in 2003, the cracks of dissent would start to show. He was dismissed in May by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Information because he had allowed a columnist to criticize a significant Islamic scholar, leading to his first self-imposed exile – though still voluntary at this time – to London. Even there, however, he remained close to the royal family, serving as both advisor and media aide to a Saudi Prince while the latter was Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.

In 2007, he returned, but that period of peace wouldn’t last long. In May of 2010, he resigned as editor-in chief from the newspaper Al Watan after a column was published challenging the basic Salafi premises – Al Watan announced that it was ‘to focus on his personal projects’, but it’s commonly accepted that he was forced out. 

Even after that, however, he maintained his ties with Saudi Arabian elites, including those in its intelligence apparatus, and between June 2012 and September 2016 there was a degree of normalcy, his opinion columns being regularly published by news television channel Al Arabiya.

Until in December of 2016, Khashoggi was banned from writing in newspapers, making TV appearances and attending conferences for criticizing US President-elect Donald Trump. 

Khashoggi himself stated how after that he ‘spent six months silent’. Just one more word written would mean a death sentence. 

Then, in June of 2017, he relocated to the United States, where he would start working for the Washington Post.

And he started writing. 

Act II

Shortly after that first column in September of 2017, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly told a top aide (during a conversation intercepted by American Intelligence agencies) that he would use ‘a bullet’ on Khashoggi if he didn’t return to the kingdom and end his criticism of the Saudi government. 

One month later, Khashoggi was at a friend’s house when suddenly his phone rings. A call from back home. On the other end was Saud al-Qahtani, a top lieutenant/enforcer of the crown prince with a grisly reputation – a name you don’t want to see on your incoming call. 

The call was surprisingly friendly, with Qahtani telling Khashoggi that public comments praising Saudi reforms, including a decision to allow women to drive, had pleased the crown prince, urging Khashoggi to ‘keep writing and boasting’ about Mohammed’s achievements. An unimaginably positive and hopeful interaction – on the surface. Underneath the worthless niceties, it was all one simple message: no matter how far you run, we’re watching you.

Khashoggi wouldn’t be placated, challenging Qahtani about the plight of activists he knew had been imprisoned in the kingdom, but, as recalled by his friend, he could see Khashoggi’s hand shaking while he held the phone. 

It wasn’t over. And nothing was forgotten. 

In 2020, a documentary film called The Dissident was released. The film features a man called Omar Abdulaziz. In the documentary, Abdulaziz said that he knew why Khashoggi was killed, saying it’s ‘because of me’. 

Khashoggi and Abdulaziz first came in contact with each other in 2017, both Saudi activists living in self-imposed exile. 

And in 2018, Abdulaziz enlisted Khashoggi for a new project. According to Abdulaziz, the Saudi government employs an army of Twitter trolls, charged with stifling dissent in the Saudi Twittersphere, amplifying government propaganda and swarming critics with abuse. 

The idea was to fight fire with fire, to create their own army of Twitter accounts, specifically a legion of volunteers, each using two or three phones to manage hundreds of accounts, something that would counter the Saudi government's propaganda and promote free speech inside the kingdom. 

Khashoggi agreed to help fund the effort. 

Abdulaziz, however, had his own troubles with the Saudi government, marked as a dissident himself. And that’s what would come back to doom Khashoggi.

In March of 2018, two Saudi agents and one of Abdulaziz’s brothers came to Montreal where he was living, in an apparent attempt to get him to come back home. After he refused, Abdulaziz learned that two of his brothers and more than 20 of his friends had been arrested and imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. 

Then, at some point within the next few weeks, he was contacted by researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. While investigating the global use of a certain spyware dubbed Pegasus – developed by surveillance company NSO Group – they were able to confirm that Abdulaziz's phone had been hacked, allowing access to his call logs, contacts and messages. And they had a high degree of confidence that the Saudi government or its security agencies were likely responsible.

One day after a report was published detailing how Abdulaziz had been targeted with Pegasus, Jamal Khashoggi disappeared inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. 

After Khashoggi was killed, Abdulaziz began putting the pieces together. He is now certain that it was the hack of his phone – which contained conversations between him, Khashoggi and countless other activists– that led to his friends and brothers getting arrested, and to Khashoggi getting killed, as it was through that the Saudi government found out that Jamal was communicating with activists and dissidents, and that he had funded Abdulaziz’s project. As he says in the film, ‘by hacking my phone, they have everything.’

In July of 2021, it was reported that several other people close to Khashoggi had been identified as potential surveillance targets by NSO Group clients, which reportedly included the Saudis, before and after his death. Khashoggi's fiancé reportedly had her phone hacked with Pegasus spyware only four days after the murder. NSO Group has denied its technology was associated with Khashoggi's murder.

At this point it should be mentioned, though, that on the 21st of September – just 11 days before the murder – Khashoggi publicly tweeted out his support of Abdulaziz’s project (known as The Bees Army). Using their first hashtag ‘what do you know about the bees’, he tweeted ‘They love their home country and defend it with truth and rights’. So, in the end, that would probably have been enough for him to doom himself. 

As the months passed and October 2018 neared, attempts to lure and snag Khashoggi became not just more frequent, but brazen. After the killing, it was reported that U.S. intelligence had intercepted communications of Saudi officials discussing a (obviously unrealized) plan ordered by the crown prince, to capture Khashoggi straight from his home in Virginia. 

Yet probably one of the most pivotal moments in causing this particular outcome of this story was a simple phone call that the crown prince’s brother, Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, while he was looking to acquire the documents needed for his pending marriage, presumably while he was having doubts about whether or not it was safe for him to visit the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

During that phone call, Khalid told Khashoggi that he should go to the consulate, and – most importantly – gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so. 

This wasn’t the first time Khashoggi and Khalid had talked – a few months back (according to anonymous witnesses who contacted NBC News, either in ‘early 2018 or late 2017’), Khashoggi visited Prince Khalid at his office in the Saudi embassy in Washington, where Khalid asked him to come home to Saudi Arabia, saying that all is forgiven.

Both Prince Khalid and a senior royal court adviser had been contacting Khashoggi for at least a year to try to persuade him to return. They had reportedly told him that, despite his outspoken criticism of Saudi leadership, he would be welcomed back warmly. 

Oh and that senior royal court adviser? He has since been fired for his role in Khashoggi’s killing.

The sharks had been circling for a long time, and once Khashoggi came close enough for them to smell blood, there was no chance of escape for him. 

On the evening of October 1st 2018, Khashoggi arrived in Istanbul. There he apparently told a friend that he was worried about being kidnapped and sent back to Saudi Arabia. One last, sound warning of his instincts, which unfortunately went unheeded.

Another arrival came into Istanbul on the 1st, at around 4:30 pm – a three-person Saudi team arrived on a scheduled flight, checked into their hotels, and then visited the consulate. 

A bit after that, during the early hours of the 2nd, a 15-member group arrived from Riyadh on two private Gulfstream jets.

In a room inside the consulate, Saud al-Qahtani addressed the group via Skype.

With one unmistakably unambiguous command, he quite literally sentences Khashoggi to death:

‘Bring me the head of the dog.’ 

Act III

What follows now was secretly recorded by Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, on microphones hidden inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The tape is time-stamped 1.02 pm – 12 minutes before Khashoggi enters the consulate.

The deputy commander of the hit squad can be heard asking if it’s possible to put the body in a bag, to which a doctor present – the Head of Forensic Evidence at the Saudi General Security Department – replies no, saying that he’s too heavy, very tall too, adding that, actually, he’s always worked on cadavers, and knows how to cut very well, and that even though he’s never worked on a warm body, he’ll also manage that easily. 

He then goes to describe how he normally puts on his earphones and listens to music when he cuts cadavers, sipping on his coffee and smoking in the meantime. He adds that after dismembering it, they will wrap the parts into plastic bags, put them in suitcases and take them out the building. 

After that exchange, the commander asks whether the ‘animal to be sacrificed’ has arrived. At 1.14 pm a member of the squad says ‘he is here.’

After Khashoggi was dragged into the backroom, this actual  conversation took between him and his soon-to-be murderers.

These are Khashoggi’s last moments, in full:

(Mutreb:) Leave a message for your son.

(Khashoggi:) What should I tell my son?

(Mutreb:) You will write a message, let's rehearse; show it to us.

(Khashoggi:) What should I say, 'see you soon'?

(Unidentified man:) Cut it short.

(Mutreb:) You will write something like 'I'm in Istanbul. Don't worry if you cannot reach me.'

(Khashoggi:) I shouldn't say kidnapped.

(Unidentified man:) Take your jacket off.

(Khashoggi:) How can such a thing take place at a consulate? I'm not writing anything.

(Unidentified man:) Cut it short.

(Khashoggi:) I'm not writing anything.

(Mutreb:) Write it, Mr. Jamal. Hurry up. Help us so we can help you, because in the end we will take you back to Saudi Arabia and if you don't help us you know what will happen eventually.

(Khashoggi:) There is a towel here. Will you have me drugged?

(Al-Tubaigy:) We will put you to sleep.

Khashoggi was then drugged, telling his captors, ‘do not keep my mouth shut’ as they put a plastic bag over his head.

His final words were ‘I have asthma. Do not do it, you will suffocate me.’

Sounds of struggling and suffocation are heard, with brief moments of discussion within the hit squad, questioning whether he’s still moving.

At one point one of them says to ‘keep pushing’. 

At 1.39 pm the sound of an autopsy saw is heard as they begin dismembering Khashoggi’s body. The procedure continues for 30 minutes.

It is then thought that the pieces of Khashoggi’s body were packed into suitcases and carried out of the embassy, as suggested. His remains have never been found. 

Epilogue

Yet the most bizarre aspect of this story was saved for after the killing itself. Law enforcement surveillance footage captured a man later identified as Mustafa al-Madani leaving the Saudi consulate by the back door, wearing Khashoggi’s clothes, a fake beard, and glasses. Yes, a body double. 

The same man was later spotted at Istanbul’s world-famous Blue Mosque, hours after Khashoggi was last seen alive, entering the consulate. According to a Turkish official, Madani, 57, who is of similar height, age (just two years younger) and build as Khashoggi, was used as a decoy for the journalist. He would go on to say that the the video that captured Madani showed him doing just what he was brought to Istanbul for – to act as a body double.

When Madani entered the consulate, he was without a beard, wearing a blue and white-checked shirt and dark blue trousers. When he exited, he wore Khashoggi’s dark blazer and gray shirt opened at the collar and trousers (though, crucially, still the same dark pair of sneakers with white soles that he first arrived in prior to the journalist’s death).

According to the official, ‘Khashoggi’s clothes were probably still warm when Madani put them on.’ 

Once the secret was out, a circus of diplomatic tiptoeing followed. Saudi Arabia initially claimed that nothing at all had happened, that Khashoggi had left the consulate ‘after a few minutes’, ‘or one hour’. Then they admitted that he died, but said that it was during a ‘fistfight’ after resisting attempts to return him to Saudi Arabia. Then they admitted that his death had been ordered, but said that it was carried out by rogue elements of the government, and that the crown prince knew nothing about it. 

The kingdom then conducted what humanitarian experts have called ‘a parody of justice’. Of the eleven Saudis accused, eight unidentified men were charged, five of them sentenced to death, three to prison. The five men sentenced to death were low-level participants, while two of the acquitted were high-level Saudi security officials. 

And even those charged were legally pardoned in May of 2020 by Khashoggi’s sons, who remain in Saudi Arabia and thus under threat of coercion. Khashoggi’s fiancé called it ‘a complete mockery of justice’.

There must, of course, always be a scapegoat, someone to publicly take the fall. And who would be the fall guy this time? None other than Saud al-Qahtani. Known for his brutal reputation, a big enough name to satisfy public perception, caught on Skype giving the order. An easy body to throw to the wolves and hope it’s meaty enough so they don’t come back asking for more. 

Or so they would have everyone believe. Away from the public eye since 2019, the former royal advisor’s name has made a recent comeback within the Kingdom’s social media networks, amid reports hinting at his imminent return to the heart of government.

A big spectacle of moral outrage, international condemnation, promises of reform, and a movement pressuring nations to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia, actually implemented by Germany. 

Yet a few years later, the issue has been drowned in the never-ending news cycle, none of the men responsible have faced even the slightest of consequences, and according to a report in late September of this year, Germany has just OK’d new arms sales to Saudi Arabia. 

For all the show and bluster, Jamal Khashoggi will share the same dirt as all of his nameless friends and colleagues that were quietly whisked away in the night. 

By 16 November 2018, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had concluded that Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's assassination. In a declassified document produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2021, titled 'Assessing the Saudi Government’s role in the Killing of Jamal Khashoggi', they lay out their chilling conclusions.