Category Archives: Mohammed bin Salman

The Guardian view on Jamal Khashoggi’s murder: Saudi Arabia and its friends | Editorial

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One way to honour Khashoggi is to celebrate his life. Another is to recognise the lessons of his death

The UN report into October’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is the fullest account yet of events and as horrifying as one would expect. Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur, describes a “deliberate, premeditated execution”; secretly recorded conversations before his visit discussed the arrival of the “sacrificial animal” and dismemberment of a body. She concludes that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be investigated because there is “credible evidence” that he and other senior officials are liable for the killing – a conclusion also reached by the CIA – despite the kingdom’s insistence that it was a rogue operation.

No reminder should be needed of the brutality of the killing of Khashoggi, a widely respected journalist living in Washington. Even Saudi Arabia’s business and diplomatic allies blanched, or at least felt obliged to put some distance between themselves and the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom, after repeated lies about what happened, announced that it would try 11 suspects for his murder.

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‘Credible evidence’ Saudi crown prince liable for Khashoggi killing – UN report

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Mohammed bin Salman should be investigated over journalist’s murder, says report

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be investigated over the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi because there is “credible evidence” that he and other senior officials are liable for the killing, according to a damning and forensic UN report.

In an excoriating 100-page analysis published on Wednesday of what happened to Khashoggi last October, Agnes Callamard, the UN’s special rapporteur, says the death of the journalist was “an international crime”.

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Saudi influence in spotlight as US calls on Riyadh to end Sudan violence

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Washington takes unusual step of calling on kingdom to bring about end to military crackdown

The thorny question of Saudi Arabian political influence across the Middle East and Africa is back in the spotlight again with Washington taking the unusual step of effectively telling Riyadh to end Sudan’s military crackdown.

In an unusual public statement the US state department revealed that its undersecretary for political affairs, the diplomat David Hale, had phoned the Saudi deputy defence minister, Khaled bin Salman, to ask him to use the country’s influence to end the brutal repression against peaceful protesters by the Sudanese Transitional Military Council (TMC) in Sudan.

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Trump officials approved Saudi nuclear permits after Khashoggi murder

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  • Seven licenses approved for Riyadh by US energy department
  • Democrats: ‘Were decisions … based on Trump’s financial ties?’

The Trump administration twice approved licenses for the export of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, it emerged on Tuesday.

Related: Jamal Khashoggi: murder in the consulate

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The Guardian view on Libya: this crisis is international | Editorial

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Khalifa Haftar’s foreign backers have egged him on – and civilians are paying the price

The warlord Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, has never disguised his ambitions. Once one of Muammar Gaddafi’s generals, he returned from exile in the US when the dictator fell in 2011, attempted to launch a coup three years later, repeatedly declared his intention to take Tripoli and has said that his country may not be ready for democracy.

So the professions of shock from his backers when he mounted his assault on the western capital, held by the internationally recognised Government of National Accord, cannot be treated with great seriousness. The only real surprise about his advance was its timing. By moving while the UN secretary-general was in the country, to discuss arrangements for a UN-organised conference intended to lead to elections, he destroyed muted hopes of a political solution and underscored his already evident contempt for the process. As the prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, complained, the response of many supposed allies was silence.

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Hearing postponed for ‘private reasons’ in trial of 11 Saudi women

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Defendants, several of whom campaigned for right to drive, given no new date for hearing

A court in Saudi Arabia has postponed a fourth hearing in the trial of several women’s rights activists, a case that has intensified western criticism of Riyadh following the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A court official informed some of the women’s relatives that the session would not take place, citing the judge’s “private reasons”, and could not provide a new date. The public prosecutor said last May that some of the women had been arrested on suspicion of harming Saudi interests and offering support to hostile elements abroad.

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US-Saudi dual citizens among eight critics of regime detained

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First arrests since Jamal Khashoggi killing include women’s rights activists

Saudi Arabia has launched a fresh round of arrests of activists and critics, many of them supporters of jailed civil rights campaigners, in an apparent rebuff to mounting international pressure over its treatment of dissidents.

Eight people, including two US-Saudi citizens, were detained on Thursday in the first such sweep of perceived critics of the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, since the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

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Leaked reports reveal severe abuse of Saudi political prisoners

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Exclusive: cuts, burns and bruising documented, despite government denials of torture

Political prisoners in Saudi Arabia are said to be suffering from malnutrition, cuts, bruises and burns, according to leaked medical reports that are understood to have been prepared for the country’s ruler, King Salman.

The reports seem to provide the first documented evidence from within the heart of the royal court that political prisoners are facing severe physical abuse, despite the government’s denials that men and women in custody are being tortured.

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Saudi crown prince allegedly stripped of some authority

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Series of Mohammed bin Salman no-shows at high-profile meetings fed claims of rift with king

The heir to the Saudi throne has not attended a series of high-profile ministerial and diplomatic meetings in Saudi Arabia over the last fortnight and is alleged to have been stripped of some of his financial and economic authority, the Guardian has been told.

The move to restrict, if only temporarily, the responsibilities of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is understood to have been revealed to a group of senior ministers earlier last week by his father, King Salman.

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Rumours grow of rift between Saudi king and crown prince

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King Salman said to have been angered by recent moves by Prince Mohammed against him

There are growing signs of a potentially destabilising rift between the king of Saudi Arabia and his heir, the Guardian has been told.

King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are understood to have disagreed over a number of important policy issues in recent weeks, including the war in Yemen.

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Trump’s cronies are in secret talks to sell nuclear tech to Saudi. The risks are clear

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The congressional report on this multibillion-dollar scheme provides further evidence of attempts to monetise the Trump presidency

The idea that the US might sell state-of-the-art nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, potentially enabling Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reckless regime to build nuclear weapons, sounds so far-fetched as to be almost grotesque.

After all the near-hysterical American and Israeli warnings about the risk of Iran, the Saudis’ arch-rival, acquiring the bomb, surely even Donald Trump would balk at such breathtaking – and dangerous – hypocrisy?

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UN executions expert to visit Turkey to lead Khashoggi inquiry

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Investigation comes as Saudi efforts to normalise relations with west move on to Davos

A UN expert on executions is to travel to Turkey next week to lead an “independent international inquiry” into the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian journalist killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said she would evaluate the circumstances of the crime and “the nature and the extent of states’ and individuals’ responsibilities for the killing”. She will report on the findings from her five-day visit to the UN human rights council in June.

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Outrage after Netflix pulls comedy show criticising Saudi Arabia

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Standup Hasan Minhaj had mocked official accounts about fate of Jamal Khashoggi

Netflix has taken down an episode of a satirical comedy show critical of Saudi Arabia in the country after officials from the kingdom complained, sparking criticism from Human Rights Watch, which said the act undermined the streaming service’s “claim to support artistic freedom”.

It comes three months after the brutal killing of the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi – which US senators have blamed on the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – and as the war in Yemen continues to devastate the country.

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