Saudi Crown Prince, MBS liable for Khashoggi’s murder – UN

Agnes Callamard, United Nations special rapporteur has said there is credible evidence that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is liable for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Callamard called for an impartial, international investigation to establish whether the ‘threshold of criminal responsibility has been met’.

The UN rapporteur, in what was the first independent report on the killing, published on Wednesday, said other high-level Saudi officials should also be investigated alongside the prince.

She noted that she had found evidence that “Khashoggi was himself fully aware of the powers held by the Crown Prince, and fearful of him.”

Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor and critic of bin Salman, was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

Saudi Arabia has admitted that its agents killed Khashoggi in a premeditated murder, but denied that Bin Salman had any knowledge of the operation.

Prosecutors have accused ‘rogue agents’ of the state for undertaking the killing and have put 11 men on trial behind closed doors, five of whom face the death penalty.

Callamard has been conducting what she has described as ‘an independent human rights inquiry’ into Khashoggi’s death,’according to Daily Mail.

UN special rapporteurs are also independent and do not speak for the world body.

In Wednesday’s report she said she found that the probes conducted so far by Saudi Arabia and Turkey had ‘failed to meet international standards regarding the investigation into unlawful deaths.’

She urged UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to launch an official international criminal investigation into the case, which she said would make it possible to ‘build-up strong files on each of the alleged perpetrators and identify mechanisms for formal accountability, such as an ad hoc or hybrid tribunal.’

She also called on the FBI in the United States, where Khashoggi was a resident, to open an investigation into the case, if it has not already done so, ‘and pursue criminal prosecutions within the United States, as appropriate.’

For her investigation, Callamard said that, among other things, she had viewed CCTV footage from inside the consulate of the killing itself.

The report identified by name the 15 people she said were part of the mission to kill Khashoggi, and suggested that many of them were not on the list of 11 unnamed suspects facing a closed-door trial over the murder.

Khashoggi was killed inside Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate last year and the Arab Kingdom has admitted its agents were responsible, but denies bin Salman knew of the operation

Wednesday’s report also found that there was evidence that ‘Saudi Arabia deliberately used consular immunity to stall Turkey’s investigations until the crime scene could be thoroughly cleaned.’

‘In view of my concerns regarding the fairness of the trial of the 11 suspects in Saudi Arabia, I call for the suspension of the trial,’ she said in the report.