{"id":32266,"date":"2019-02-08T02:22:50","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T02:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32266"},"modified":"2019-02-08T02:22:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T02:22:50","slug":"un-rapporteur-khashoggi-murder-perpetrated-by-saudi-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32266","title":{"rendered":"UN rapporteur: Khashoggi murder ‘perpetrated’ by Saudi officials"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The\u00a0<\/span>UN<\/a>\u00a0human rights investigator leading the international inquiry into the murder of Saudi journalist\u00a0<\/span>Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>\u00a0said evidence showed he was a victim of “a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia”.<\/p>\n

Special Rapporteur\u00a0Agnes Callamard<\/a>\u00a0said on Thursday her three-member team had access to part of “chilling and gruesome audio material” of the murder obtained by Turkish intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia<\/a> also “seriously undermined” Turkey’s efforts to investigate Khashoggi’s killing at its Istanbul consulate, said a UN statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Woefully inadequate time and access was granted to Turkish investigators to conduct a professional and effective crime-scene examination and search required by international standards for investigation,” Callamard said.<\/p>\n

Reporting on a week-long mission with her team of three experts to Turkey<\/a>, Callamard also said she requested access to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

She expressed “major concerns” about the fairness of proceedings for 11 people facing trial in the kingdom over Khashoggi’s murder.<\/p>\n

Callamard\u00a0plans to present a final report to the UN Human Rights Council in June.<\/p>\n

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince\u00a0Mohammed bin Salman<\/span> (MBS<\/a>), was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 last year.\u00a0His body has yet to be found.<\/span><\/p>\n

US intelligence agencies believe Prince Mohammed ordered the assassination.<\/p>\n

‘Rogue’ elements<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Riyadh denies the powerful prince had any involvement, alleging “rogue” Saudi elements acted on their own accord.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> that Riyadh was trying to contest an element of a CIA assessment that concluded MBS likely ordered the killing.<\/p>\n

A confidential report prepared by Kroll, a large private security firm, for the Saudi public prosecutor found that none of the WhatsApp messages exchanged between Prince Mohammed and his top aide, Saud al-Qahtani, on the day of the murder concerned Khashoggi, the WSJ cited the draft document as saying.<\/p>\n

“The existence of those messages between the Saudi prince and Mr Qahtani – who oversaw the team that killed Mr Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, according to people familiar with his work – was one piece of evidence cited in the highly classified CIA assessment,” the WSJ reported.<\/p>\n

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Callamard (R) plans to present a final report to the UN Human Rights Council in June [File: Cemal Yurttas\/EPA-EFE]<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A Saudi public prosecutor’s spokesperson said last year 21 Saudis had been taken into custody over the case, 11 of whom had been indicted and referred to trial.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor said earlier this month his office was\u00a0seeking the death penalty<\/a>\u00a0for five of the 11 indicted suspects.<\/p>\n

Turkey wants\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u00a0to extradite those accused of carrying out the murder to be tried in Turkish courts.<\/p>\n

Sigurd Neubauer, from the Gulf International Forum think-tank, said it remains to be seen how the UN’s investigation is received internationally, particularly by the United States – the Saudis’ main ally.<\/p>\n

“This is an extraordinary complex diplomatic game that’s unfolding,” he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has yet to say if it will allow the UN team of investigators into the kingdom to continue its probe. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“The murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the sheer brutality of it has brought irreversible tragedy to his loved ones,” said Callamard.<\/p>\n

“It is also raising a number of international implications which demand the urgent attention of the international community, including the United Nations.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0UN\u00a0human rights investigator leading the international inquiry into the murder of Saudi journalist\u00a0Jamal Khashoggi\u00a0said evidence showed he was a victim of “a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia”. Special Rapporteur\u00a0Agnes Callamard\u00a0said on Thursday her three-member team had access to part of “chilling and gruesome audio material”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}