Jamal Khashoggi. Anatomy of a Saudi state crime.
Jamal Khashoggi: Anatomy of a Saudi State Crime
Documentary
Bryan Fogel’s documentary, The Dissident, recounts the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A chilling dive into the world of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
PIERRE PRIER
Orient XXI – 19 April 2021
The murder of a journalist is rarely the subject of a two-hour documentary film. But when it involves a state crime, with a Saudi prince as the mastermind and a victim dismembered in a diplomatic hall, Bryan Fogel’s The Dissident surfaces. Fogel, who also directed the explosive documentary Icarus (2017) about doping in Russia, which won an Oscar for best documentary film (2018), saw his film rejected by major streaming platforms reluctant to cross the new Saudi strongman. It certainly wasn’t due to a lack of quality.
Masterfully directed, this political thriller doesn’t merely detail the gruesome death by asphyxiation of Jamal Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for the major US newspaper The Washington Post, whose body was dismembered on 2 October 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The filmmaker brilliantly explores the wider implications of this global news event, which recently took on a new dimension with the release of a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), indicating that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) “approved” the operation.
Behind the story of an unofficial journalist forced into exile and turned adversary, we see Saudi Arabia morphing into a brutal autocracy obsessed with exerting absolute control over its population through the most advanced technology. This nightmare is also reflected in the fate of a young Saudi activist, also in exile, who was even persecuted in Canada by the regime, which retaliated in a vicious manner. The film also gives a voice to Jamal Khashoggi’s companion, Turkish university student Hattis Jengeez, who he was soon to marry. Her narrative is told with restrained pain, and is illustrated with poignant messages and photographs.
Hattis Jengeez anxiously waited for hours outside the consulate where her partner had gone in to retrieve documents confirming his divorce from a previous wife.
“‘Has the sacrificial animal arrived?”
Jamal Khashoggi met his death almost immediately upon entering the building, suffocating inside a plastic bag. Despite their frosty relationship with Riyadh, the Turkish authorities provided the director with all the evidence collected in their investigation. The Turkish intelligence services’ recordings, made possible by hidden microphones scattered throughout the consulate, vividly capture the incident, moment by moment. The members of the assassination team, who had flown in on a special plane, converse and jest as if they’re in a Quentin Tarantino film. “Has the sacrificial animal arrived?” Dr. Salah Al-Tubaigi, a forensic scientist armed with a bone saw, asks. “The joints are not a problem,” he continues, “but I wonder if the torso and pelvis will fit in a bag.” And after the dismemberment is complete: “No, this bag, we’re sending it to Riyadh for identification.”
“We listen to Jamal Khashoggi choking and moaning for seven and a half minutes,” notes the Turkish prosecutor with a chilling detachment. Police images reveal blood stains on the carpet, exposed by the Luminol – a chemical method used by the forensic police. The report also mentions the discovery of an oven buried in the Saudi consul’s garden, where the remains were likely incinerated. “On the day of the murder, the consulate ordered thirty kilos of meat from a renowned restaurant,” the prosecutor adds. This was done to mask the smell and also to erase any traces of DNA.
A friend of Khashoggi’s, a former director of Qatar’s Al Jazeera channel, suggests that this medieval-style murder was intended as a warning. The message is unambiguous: dissent from the leader’s opinion is not tolerated.
Jamal Khashoggi was not a rebel. For three decades, he was a journalist with close ties to the monarchy, managing several newspapers owned by princes. However, he lost his job when he criticized the religious establishment a tad too harshly. He also served as an advisor to the influential. Prince Turki Ben Fayçal Al-Saoud, the long-time chief of Saudi intelligence, appointed Jamal Khashoggi as his spokesperson when he was named ambassador to London and then to Washington. Having been educated in the United States, Jamal Khashoggi was among the Saudi journalists responsible for conveying the kingdom’s positions to the international press. In an interview on US public radio PBS, he characterized the war in Yemen, led by Saudi Arabia, as a battle against Iran, to which he drew parallels with Nazi Germany.
From Support to Criticism of MBS
His stance on the war became increasingly critical, a sentiment he expressed in a leading article for the Washington Post. The publication welcomed him in 2017 when the journalist chose to go into exile, fearing for his safety. Initially, Khashoggi had been supportive of the new crown prince MBS, a 35-year-old modernizer who aimed to alter the kingdom’s image by permitting concerts and finally granting women the right to drive. However, MBS also suppressed civil liberties, leading mass arrests within the royal family and among those who advocated for human rights. Eventually, it was Jamal Khashoggi’s turn to face repercussions for an article where he criticized Donald Trump’s unconditional support for MBS.
By the end of 2016, his regular contributions to the Saudi press were abruptly terminated. He stated that the palace had warned him, “You must no longer write or express yourself on social media.” The old political order, based on family consensus among the sons of King Abdulaziz, the founder of the modern kingdom, had been replaced by the dictatorship of a single man. In exile, Khashoggi criticized MBS’s autocracy in his columns for the Washington Post. His American columns trace his evolving views. While not advocating for the end of the monarchy, he expressed admiration for the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt. He also urged the United States to engage with the Muslim Brotherhood (of which he was a former member) and to address the political turmoil in the Middle East. This was an absolute red line for Saudi Arabia.
According to the director of The Dissident, Khashoggi’s murder was likely decided after the journalist met with a young Saudi activist, Omar Al-Zahrani. Also in exile in Canada, Al-Zahrani revealed that Jamal Khashoggi had transferred money to him to fund his ambitious plan: a team of cyber-activists who would challenge the virtual army MBS had assembled to persecute, slander, and neutralize his opponents on Twitter, a platform often referred to as the “House of Arabs”.
In this virtual war, as the film reveals, the Saudi regime has a significant advantage, courtesy of Israeli technology. Experts explain how MBS, using Israeli Pegasus software, was able to infiltrate the activists’ phones and track them everywhere. This included Jeff Bezos, the Amazon CEO and owner of the Washington Post, who was “infected” by MBS himself during a meeting between the two. For Jamal Khashoggi, the young prince resorted to even more brutal methods.
Pierre Prier is a French journalist. He devoted 21 years of his career to Le Figaro, where he covered stories from the Near East and Africa. From 2000 to 2004, he held the position of Jerusalem bureau chief, during the tumultuous period of the second intifada.
Written by S.S.
#img#
