“Joints will be separated. It is not a problem,” - MSB goons on murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi

The U.S. government is weighing a request to declare Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman immune from a federal lawsuit accusing him of targeting for assassination a former top intelligence officer who could disclose damaging secrets about the prince’s ascent to power, according to legal documents related to the case.

The Saudi government has asked that the prince be shielded from liability in response to a complaint brought by Saad Aljabri, a former Saudi counterterrorism leader and longtime U.S. intelligence ally now living in exile in Canada.

A State Department recommendation could also lead to the dismissal of the prince as a defendant in other cases recently filed in the United States, including ones accusing him of directing the death and dismemberment of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018; and of targeting a hack and leak operation to discredit an Al Jazeera news anchor, Ghada Oueiss, in retaliation for her critical reports on Mohammed and the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates.

The State Department sent a questionnaire last month to Aljabri’s lawyers, soliciting their legal views on whether it should grant the Saudi request, according to a person close to the family who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the pending litigation and the document, which The Post reviewed.
Attorneys for Aljabri and Mohammed and a spokesman for the State Department declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

Former Saudi intelligence officer accuses crown prince of ordering his assassination in Canada

The request to the Trump administration comes as the State Department, Aljabri’s family and supportive U.S. lawmakers have condemned Riyadh for detaining two of Aljabri’s children in a bid to silence him.
President Trump, though, has been an ardent supporter of the crown prince, who is sometimes referred to by his initials, MBS. Trump picked Saudi Arabia for his first official overseas visit and views the kingdom as central to U.S. efforts to isolate Iran and an important client for the sale of U.S. weapons.

He has blocked congressional efforts to censure the Saudi government and avoided criticizing the kingdom for alleged human rights abuses. After Khashoggi was killed two years ago by Saudi agents in Istanbul, Trump expressed doubts that Mohammed had a role in the killing, contradicting the findings of his own intelligence community.

It may be harder for Saudi Arabia to persuade the United States to confer immunity on Mohammed once Trump leaves office. President-elect Joe Biden has said he would “reassess” the U.S. relationship with the kingdom and has condemned Khashoggi’s killing.

Jamal Khashoggi’s death made the Saudi crown prince a pariah. Trump has helped rehabilitate him on the world stage.

Listen on Post Reports: John Hudson on how the Trump administration helped rehabilitate Saudi Arabia’s global reputation in the year following Jamal Khashoggi’s death

In a statement on the anniversary of the journalist’s death in October, Biden said Khashoggi and his loved ones “deserve accountability.” A Biden administration, he added, would end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen, and “make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”

In a statement, Aljabri’s eldest son, Khalid, a family spokesman, said U.S. support for the Saudi claim would greenlight further assassination plots.

“If granted, the U.S. would essentially be granting MBS immunity for conduct that succeeded in killing Jamal Khashoggi and failed to kill my dad,” said Khalid Aljabri, a cardiologist in Toronto. He added, “Lack of accountability is one thing, but allowing impunity through immunity is like issuing a license to kill.”

Read the Saudi crown prince’s motion to dismiss here

A favorable decision, known as a “suggestion of immunity,” is only one option. The executive branch can also issue a statement of interest to a court that falls short of an outright declaration, proposing further inquiries or actions by a court. Or it can do nothing, essentially denying a request.

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The Trump administration has formally notified Congress that it intends to sell nearly $500 million in precision bombs to Saudi Arabia, a transaction that is likely to fuel criticism from lawmakers who object to arming the Persian Gulf nation over its record of human rights abuses and stifling dissent and role in the war in Yemen.

An individual familiar with the sale, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment to the news media, said the deal includes 7,500 “Paveway IV” precision-guided bombs, worth $478 million, which under the terms of the agreement would be produced in the kingdom.

The proposed transaction, which has been in the works since early last year, also includes an internal security communications systems worth $97 million. Bloomberg first reported that the State Department sent the notification on Tuesday.

William Hartung, director of the arms and security program at the Center for International Policy, said the sale should not go ahead.

“Saudi access to tens of thousands of precision-guided munitions thus far has not diminished the civilian toll in Yemen, so Pentagon claims that more accurate bombs will reduce civilian casualties don’t hold up to scrutiny,” he said in a statement.

In August, the State Department said its inspector general found that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not break the law when he used an unusual emergency declaration in 2019 to bypass bipartisan congressional opposition to a larger arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

The gulf monarchy, with which the Trump administration has forged close ties, has been the subject of bipartisan criticism over its war in neighboring Yemen, where Saudi jets, using U.S. precision munitions, have repeatedly bombed civilian targets as the kingdom has sought to weaken Iranian-linked rebels there.

Scrutiny of the longtime U.S. ally intensified after Saudi agents carried out a brutal 2018 operation against Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributing columnist who was killed and dismembered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. U.S. intelligence officials concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing.

Under arms sale rules, lawmakers have 30 days from the day of notification, or until Jan. 21, to pass a resolution of disapproval.

Congressional aides said it was doubtful a vote on congressional disapproval would take place between now and when a new Congress takes over Jan. 3 because it wouldn’t be veto proof. At the same time, President Trump could issue an emergency declaration, as he did last year, overriding any congressional objection, at any point.

A representative for President-elect Joe Biden declined to comment on the sale. Earlier this year, Biden said he would reassess the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia over its record on human rights and, especially, the death of Khashoggi, promising to ensure that the United States would “not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”

More recently, Biden tapped retired Gen. Lloyd Austin, who has served as a member of Raytheon’s board, as his nominee to be defense secretary.

Addressing the new Raytheon transaction, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Biden “should immediately reverse course if this deal does go through.”

A Democratic congressional aide said the Trump administration was “trying to ram through even more arms sales to human rights abusers in its last month in office over clear congressional objections.”

A spokesman for Raytheon did not immediately provide a comment.

In addition to the Saudi sale, the Trump administration sent additional arms sale notifications to Congress this week, including small arms and small arms components for Canada, Philippines and Mexico.

Officials are expected to send notifications for aircraft missiles and other items for Egypt.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s crown prince likely approved the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence report released Friday that instantly ratcheted up pressure on the Biden administration to hold the kingdom accountable for a murder that drew worldwide outrage.

The intelligence findings were long known to many U.S. officials and, even as they remained classified, had been reported with varying degrees of precision. But the public rebuke of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is still a touchstone in U.S-Saudi relations. It leaves no doubt that as the prince continues in his powerful role and likely ascends to the throne, Americans will forever associate him with the brutal killing of a journalist who promoted democracy and human rights.

Yet even as the Biden administration released the findings, it appeared determined to preserve the Saudi relationship by avoiding direct punishment of the prince himself despite demands from some congressional Democrats and Khashoggi allies for significant and targeted sanctions.

Questioned by reporters, Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the approach.

“What we’ve done by the actions we’ve taken is not to rupture the relationship but to recalibrate it to be more in line with our interests and our values,” he said. “I think that we have to understand as well that this is bigger than any one person.”

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The conclusion that the prince approved an operation to kill or capture Khashoggi was based on his decision-making role inside the kingdom, the involvement of a key adviser and members of his protective detail and his past support for violently silencing dissidents abroad, according to the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Though intelligence officials stopped short of saying the prince ordered the October 2018 murder, the four-page document described him as having “absolute control” over the kingdom’s intelligence organizations and said it would have been highly unlikely for an operation like the killing to have been carried out without his approval.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry responded by saying the kingdom “categorically rejects the offensive and incorrect assessment in the report pertaining to the kingdom’s leadership.”

Shortly after the findings were released, the State Department announced a new policy, called the “Khashoggi Ban,” that will allow the U.S. to deny visas to people who harm, threaten or spy on journalists on behalf of a foreign government. It also said it would impose visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals who have engaged or threatened dissidents overseas.

The State Department declined to comment on who would be affected, citing the confidentiality of visa records. But a person familiar with the matter said the prince was not targeted. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against a former Saudi intelligence official, Ahmad Hassan Mohammed al Asiri, who U.S. officials say was the operation’s ringleader.

Democrats in Congress praised the administration for releasing the report — the Trump administration had refused to do so — but urged it to take more aggressive actions, including against the prince.

Rep. Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, urged the Biden administration to consider punishing the prince, who he says has the blood of an American journalist on his hands.

“The President should not meet with the Crown Prince, or talk with him, and the Administration should consider sanctions on assets in the Saudi Public Investment Fund he controls that have any link to the crime,” Schiff said in a statement.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, called for consequences for the prince — such as sanctions — as well as for the Saudi kingdom as a whole.

Rights activists said the lack of any punitive measures would signal impunity for the prince and other autocrats.

Without sanctions, “it’s a joke,” said Tawwakol Karman, a Nobel Peace Price winner from neighboring Yemen and friend of Khashoggi’s.

While Biden had pledged as a candidate to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the killing, he appeared to take a milder tone during a call Thursday with Saudi King Salman.

A White House summary of the conversation made no mention of the killing and said instead that the men had discussed the countries’ long-standing partnership. The kingdom’s state-run Saudi Press Agency similarly did not mention Khashoggi’s killing in its report about the call, focusing on regional issues like Iran and the war in Yemen.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has told reporters that the administration intends to “recalibrate” the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. Biden previously ordered an end to U.S. support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen and said he would stop the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia but has given few details of his plans.

Though the Biden administration’s relationship with Riyadh is likely to be more adversarial than that of Donald Trump’s, the reality is that Riyadh’s oil reserves and status as a counterbalance to Iran in the Middle East have long made it a strategic — if difficult — ally.

The broad outlines of the killing have long been known. The document released Friday says a 15-member Saudi team, including seven members of the prince’s elite personal protective team, arrived in Istanbul, though it says it’s unclear how far in advance Saudi officials had decided to harm him.

Khashoggi had gone to the Saudi consulate to pick up documents needed for his wedding. Once inside, he died at the hands of more than a dozen Saudi security and intelligence officials and others who had assembled ahead of his arrival. Surveillance cameras had tracked his route and those of his alleged killers in Istanbul in the hours before his killing.

A Turkish bug planted at the consulate reportedly captured the sound of a forensic saw, operated by a Saudi colonel who was also a forensics expert, dismembering Khashoggi’s body within an hour of his entering the building. The whereabouts of his remains remain unknown.

Full Coverage: Saudi Arabia
The prince, an ambitious 35-year-old who has rapidly consolidated power since his father became king in 2015, said in 2019 that he took “full responsibility” for the killing since it happened on his watch, but denied ordering it. Saudi officials have said Khashoggi’s killing was the work of rogue Saudi security and intelligence officials. Saudi Arabian courts last year announced they had sentenced eight Saudi nationals to prison in Khashoggi’s killing. They were not identified.

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hanimmal said:

https://apnews.com/article/us-saudi-crown-prince-khashoggi-killing-26c37f6d603737de7509f5ee09ae7f9d
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hanimmal said:

https://apnews.com/article/us-saudi-crown-prince-khashoggi-killing-26c37f6d603737de7509f5ee09ae7f9d
View attachment 4838549

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schuylaar said:

i'm waiting for the report that Biden's making public.

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schuylaar said:

can you find the report? they said it was released.

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hanimmal said:

Here is what NYT had. Not sure if it is the entire report though.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/the-report-on-jamal-khashoggi-killing/ddc9578e0994f690/full.pdf

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President Biden promised during his campaign that he would dispense with the pampering President Donald Trump offered to Middle Eastern dictators. There would be “no more blank checks” for the likes of Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, Mr. Biden vowed; as for the leaders of Saudi Arabia, he would “make them in fact the pariah that they are.” There is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

So why, last week, did Mr. Biden roll out the red carpet for Prince Khalid bin Salman, the brother of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman? The former ambassador to Washington was directly implicated in the 2018 murder of exiled journalist Jamal Khashoggi, yet was treated to a host of high-level meetings, including with Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, secretary of state and defense secretary. That’s not the reception you’d expect for a pariah.

Of course, the United States still has security interests with Saudi Arabia; according to the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Khalid bin Salman about “regional security issues,” including efforts to end the disastrous war in Yemen launched by the Saudis more than six years ago.Yet the prince now holds the relatively lowly post of deputy defense minister. If it were necessary to host a senior Saudi official to address those matters, the White House could have invited the foreign minister. Instead, Mr. Biden chose to rehabilitate a member of the ruling family who left Washington in disgrace in 2019 after publicly insisting that reports of Khashoggi’s murder inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul were “absolutely false, and baseless.” The CIA concluded that Khalid bin Salman played a key role in the killing by inducing Khashoggi, a contributing columnist for The Post who was living outside Washington, to seek paperwork he needed at the Istanbul consulate, rather than the embassy in D.C.


Mr. Biden has declined so far to meet directly with Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS; the administration released a report concluding that the crown prince was responsible for Khashoggi’s murder. But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has spoken with MBS by phone on multiple occasions. By allowing his brother to make the rounds in Washington, the White House has brought MBS a step closer to a full political recovery. The Saudi ruler has done nothing to deserve this: He continues to arrest, torture and imprison peaceful critics of his rule. Despite pressure from Washington, he has refused to sanction or even sideline the top adviser who oversaw the Khashoggi operation, as well as the arrest and torture of women who campaigned for the right to drive. Nor have U.S. efforts to broker an end to the war in Yemen succeeded.

The Saudi’s success in wearing down the administration, and similar progress by the Sissi regime in Egypt, sends a message to the world’s most brutal autocrats: Mr. Biden may talk up human rights and the importance of shunning those who crudely violate them. But, in the end, you’ll still get your White House meeting.

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schuylaar said:

Insight: Saudi crown prince plays the oil card in quest for U.S. recognition

Saudi Arabia's crown prince says he simply doesn't care whether Joe Biden misunderstands him.

www.reuters.com

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DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad was in the United Arab Emirates on Friday, his office said, marking his first visit to an Arab country since Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011.

In a statement posted on its social media pages, the office says that Assad met with Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and the ruler of Dubai. The two discussed expanding bilateral relations between their countries, it said.

The visit sends the clearest signal yet that the Arab world is willing to re-engage with Syria’s once widely shunned president. It comes against the backdrop of the raging war in Ukraine where Assad’s main ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, is pressing on with a military offensive, now in its fourth week, raining lethal fire on Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv. Syria has supported Russia’s invasion, blaming the West for having provoked it.

Syria was expelled from the 22-member Arab League and boycotted by its neighbors after the conflict broke out 11 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the war, which displaced half of Syria’s population. Large parts of Syria have been destroyed and reconstruction would cost tens of billions of dollars.

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Arab and Western countries generally blamed Assad for the deadly crackdown on the 2011 protests that evolved into civil war, and supported the opposition in the early days of the conflict.

When asked about Assad’s visit to the UAE, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Washington was “profoundly disappointed and troubled by this apparent attempt to legitimize Bashar Al-Assad, who remains responsible and accountable for the death and suffering of countless Syrians, the displacement of more than half of the pre-war Syrian population, and the arbitrary detention and disappearance of over 150,000 Syrian men, women and children.”

Assad has very rarely traveled outside the country during Syria’s civil war, only visiting Russia and Iran. Tehran has given the Syrian government billions of dollars in aid and sent Iran-backed fighters to battle alongside his forces — assistance that, along with Russian air power, has helped turn the tide in Assad’s favor.

With the war having fallen into a stalemate and Assad recovering control over most of the country thanks to military assistance from his two allies, Arab countries have inched closer toward restoring ties with the Syrian leader in recent years.

The UAE reopened its embassy in Syria in late 2018 in the most significant Arab overture toward the Assad government, though relations remained cold. Last fall, the Emirati foreign minister flew to Damascus for a meeting with Assad, the first visit by the country’s top diplomat since 2011. The United States, a close Emirati partner, criticized the visit at the time, saying it would not support any normalization with Assad’s government.

A key motive for the overtures by Sunni Muslim countries in the Persian Gulf is to blunt the involvement of their Shiite-led foe, Iran, which saw its influence expand rapidly in the chaos of Syria’s war.

The rapprochement, however, could serve both sides.

Syria badly needs to boost relations with oil-rich countries as its economy is being strangled by crippling Western sanctions and as it faces the task of post-war reconstruction. The UAE is also home to thousands of Syrians who work in the Gulf Arab nation and send money to their relatives at home.

The UAE’s state-run WAM news agency said the country’s de facto ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan welcomed Syria’s Bashar al-Assad at his palace in Abu Dhabi.

At the meeting, Sheikh Mohammed expressed his hope “this visit would be the beginning of peace and stability for Syria and tee entire region.”

The report said Assad briefed Sheikh Mohammed on the latest developments in Syria and the two leaders discussed mutual interests in the Arab world. Assad was reported to have left the UAE later on Friday from Abu Dhabi.

Sheikh Mohammed stressed to Assad that Syria remains a “fundamental pillar of Arab security” and that he hopes the UAE can facilitate its development. The leaders also discussed the importance of “the preservation of Syria’s territorial integrity and withdrawal of foreign forces,” the report added.

The similarly vague statement said Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed affirmed the UAE’s desire to “discover new paths of constructive cooperation” with Syria and made no reference to the war.

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hanimmal said:

Vicky Ward just did a interview on MSNBC that went off the rails according to the host.

She was saying how Kushner gave MBS info on a long time friend of the west who was the crown prince at the time, during a visit to the White House early on and said there would be a pay off to Kushner to displace the then crown Prince MBN, who has been disappeared since 2020.

Anyways, the host said that MSNBC has not confirmed this, to cover their butts. I didn't realize that MBS was not the crown prince prior to Trump taking office.

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Rob Roy said:

The dollar overlords have "allowed" the Saudi's to run their world with a rough hand as long as they keep the oil trade going in Federal Reserve dollars. Criminals making deals with other criminals.

Ever wonder why "the bad countries" are also the ones that want to break free from the U.S. dollar?

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