The Guardian
Biden administration ‘to disqualify report’ on Khashoggi’s murder
Decision would mean that the US could blame Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the death. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman left with journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a scene from the recent documentary The Dissident. Photo: AP The Biden government will release an intelligence report on the assassination by the Saudi government of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to Avril Haines, who was appointed to serve as director of national intelligence. The decision means that the United States is likely to officially blame Khashoggi’s brutal murder on the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist and resident in the United States who wrote critical columns about the Saudi Crown Prince, was murdered by Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey in October 2018. Although media reports have said that the intelligence community of USA determined with a medium to high degree of confidence that Prince Mohammed ordered the murder, that assessment has never been officially declared. The Crown Prince denied that he ordered the murder. Since then, Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and other human rights activists have asked Biden to release the confidential report on the murder, saying it was the first step in seeking accountability. During Haines’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said that if confirmed as the new DNI, she would have the opportunity to “immediately” turn the page on the “excessive secrecy” and “illegality” of Trump administration, and submit an unclassified report on “who was responsible” for Khashoggi’s murder, as required by a February 2020 law that the current Trump administration blocked. Asked whether she would release the report, Haines replied: “Yes, Senator, absolutely. We will follow the law. ”In a statement, Wyden praised the move, saying it was“ refreshing to hear a direct commitment to follow the law ”from Haines. The nominee for Biden’s Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, says that if confirmed, she will provide Congress with a non-confidential report on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. pic.twitter.com/ocPUsJUeti— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 19, 2021 Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and director of the Brookings Institution, said: “It’s a useful way of raising the question of responsibility for the murder of Khashoggi in the public domain at the beginning of the new administration. “One of the most outspoken advocates of justice for the murder, Agnès Callamard, also praised the measure, saying the information would provide” the essential piece missing from the puzzle of Jamal Khashoggi’s execution “. Callamard, the UN special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings, said she hoped that other information would also surface, such as any new details about the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains and whether a risk assessment has already been made by the United States as to whether Khashoggi was danger before his trip to Turkey. Callamard, who will be named the new head of Amnesty International later this year, also pointed out other threats that would have been brought against human rights defenders and former Saudi officials in Canada and Norway by Prince Mohammed’s agents, who were called “ death squad ”in media reports. “At some point, if US intelligence has information about these operations, then I think they should really make that information publicly available,” said Callamard. The launch of the Khashoggi report will also raise a number of new issues for the United States and Saudi Arabia. “If the document identifies MBS as responsible for the murder, does it raise the question of what Biden will do to hold him responsible?” said Riedel. During the 2020 election campaign, Biden launched scathing attacks on the Crown Prince, saying that Saudi Arabia needed to be treated as “an outcast”. The Biden government is expected to seek to curb arms sales to Saudi Arabia, but it can also take more targeted action against Prince Mohammed, including financial sanctions.