WASHINGTON, Oct 11, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Wednesday
demanded Saudi Arabia provide answers over the disappearance of journalist
and US resident Jamal Khashoggi, whom Turkish officials suspect was murdered
after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The Trump administration sharply upped the pressure, reversing an initially
low-key response after Washington Post contributor Khashoggi vanished on
October 2.
Trump said he had talked “more than once” and “at the highest levels” to
partners in Saudi Arabia, which is one of Washington’s closest allies and a
key market for the US weapons industry.
“We’re demanding everything,” Trump told reporters. “We cannot let this
happen, to reporters, to anybody.”
“We are very disappointed to see what’s going on. We don’t like it and
we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” he added.
Twenty-two senators wrote to Trump invoking the Global Magnitsky Human
Rights Accountability Act, which requires the president to open an
investigation and determine whether sanctions should be imposed.
The act is used in cases of suspected “extrajudicial killing, torture, or
other gross violation of internationally recognized human rights against an
individual exercising freedom of expression,” the senators said.
Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said National Security Advisor John Bolton,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump’s close aide and son-in-law Jared
Kushner had all spoken to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the past two
days.
The United States has not confirmed Turkish claims that Khashoggi, a US
resident and one of the more outspoken critics of the regime of King Salman
and his son Prince Mohammed, had been lured to the Istanbul consulate and
murdered by a team of 15 government operatives sent by Riyadh to Istanbul.
But The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Prince Mohammed himself had
ordered the operation targeting Khashoggi.
Saudi officials were heard discussing a plan to lure Khashoggi from the US
state of Virginia, where he resided, and detain him, the newspaper said,
citing unnamed US officials discussing intelligence intercepts.
The case has sparked outrage from human rights and journalism groups.
In the calls by Bolton, Kushner and Pompeo, Sanders said, “they asked for
more details and for the Saudi government to be transparent in the
investigation process.”
Trump also said he was looking into a meeting in the White House with
Khashoggi’s fiancee Hatice Cengiz.
– Critic of Saudi regime –
US peace activists Code Pink mounted a protest in front of the Saudi
Embassy in Washington Wednesday, brandishing signs saying “Where is Jamal
Khashoggi?” and “Khashoggi: Another Victim of Saudi Violence.”
“We are very very disturbed” by Khashoggi’s disappearance, said Code Pink
founder Meda Benjamin.
“We think that there is very little hope that Jamal is still alive.”
The Washington Post, where Khashoggi has been a regular contributor over
the past year, also called for answers.
“Reports about Jamal’s fate have suggested he was a victim of state-
sponsored, cold-blooded murder,” said Post publisher and chief executive Fred
Ryan.
“Silence, denials and delays are not acceptable. We demand to know the
truth,” he added.
Khashoggi, 59, is a longtime leading Saudi journalist and former government
advisor who went into exile last year after 33-year-old Prince Mohammed rose
to power under his father the king.
He has been critical of the monarchy’s continued arrest of critics on both
the left and right, despite its professed reforms.
He has also repeatedly assailed Riyadh’s role leading the war against
Yemen’s Huthi rebels, a campaign closely identified with Prince Mohammed that
has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and generated a major
humanitarian disaster.
Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain
papers for his pending marriage to Cengiz, who is Turkish.
In his last interview three days before his disappearance, he said he did
not think he would return to Saudi Arabia.
“When I hear of the arrest of a friend who did nothing that (deserved
being) arrested, it makes me feel I shouldn’t go,” he told the BBC.
– Never left the building? –
Riyadh insisted that Khashoggi left the building and called the murder
claims “baseless.”
Turkish investigators say they have CCTV footage showing him entering the
consulate, but not leaving.
A source told the Washington Post that US intelligence “intercepted
communications of Saudi officials discussing a plan to capture him.”
The Saudis hoped to “lure” Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia “and lay hands on him
there,” the source told the Post.
But State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino told reporters they
had no such tip.
“The US had no advance knowledge of Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance” or of
any kind of threat, he said Wednesday.
The issue threatened the strong relationship the Trump administration has
constructed with Prince Mohammed.
The two sides have cooperated on challenging Iran, on supporting Israel and
on the war against the Huthis.
But Prince Mohammed has drawn growing scrutiny over his campaign against
critics.
Reporters Without Borders said in a statement that between 25 and 30
professional and non-professional journalists are currently detained in Saudi
Arabia.