Top secret documents have revealed that the murderers who killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi used two private planes from a company captured by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince as a confirmed version of a U.S. intelligence report Thursday that Mohammed bin Salman will get approval for the 2018 killings.
The documents, filed as part of a lawsuit in Canada and obtained by CNN, describe how the ownership of Sky Prime Aviation was transferred into the country’s $ 400 billion sovereign wealth fund, added. called Public Investment Fund, in 2017.
Just a year later, in October 2018, the company’s Gulfstreams were used to commit Khashoggi’s murder.
According to the network, the documents establishing the connection between the planes and the prince were submitted by a group of Saudi-owned companies as part of an embezzlement suit against Saudi intelligence officer Saad Aljabri.
Aljabri had filed a lawsuit in Washington, DC, last year against MBS, initials of which the crown prince is known, alleging that he sent a hit team to kill him there. in Canada days after Khashoggi’s assassination.
Top secret documents have revealed that the murderers who killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi (left) used two private jets from a company captured by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (right)
Meanwhile, U.S. officials said their intelligence report, in which the CIA was a major partner, estimated that the crown prince had agreed and apparently ordered the murder of Khashoggi, who had a column Washington Post has criticized bin Salman’s policies.
President Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday that he had read the report and planned to speak shortly on the phone with Saudi Arabian King Salman, 85, the father of the crown prince, governor de facto 35-year-old of the country.
The release of the report is part of Biden’s policy to forge ties with Riyadh after years of sanctioning an Arab alliance and a major oil producer on its human rights agenda and its intervention in the Yemeni civil war .
Biden is working to bring relations with Riyadh back to traditional lines after four years of cozier ties under former president Donald Trump.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday that Biden would only contact the Saudi king and said he was reading Khashoggi’s report which was released for his imminent release.
While Biden limits his ties to the king, others in Biden’s administration are talking to Saudi officials at various levels.
‘We have been in contact with Saudi officials at several levels in the early weeks of this administration,’ State Department Ned Price said.
Khashoggi, 59, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist, was lured to a Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, and was killed by a team of workers linked to a prince crown. They then removed his body. The remains of it have never been found.
Riyadh eventually admitted that Khashoggi had been killed in a false ‘false’ expansion activity, but denied that the crown prince was involved.
Five men sentenced to death for the murder have been jailed for 20 years after being pardoned by Khashoggi’s family.
President Joe Biden plans to call Saudi King Salman ahead of the prospect of the release of an intelligence report on the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
The Biden administration has said it would rebalance relations with Saudi Arabia and that Biden would talk to 85-year-old King Salman bin Abdulaziz (top left) instead of his heir – a change in policy since the Trump administration
In 2019, the UN human rights inspector, Agnes Callamard, accused Saudi Arabia of Khashoggi’s ‘deliberate and premature execution’ and called for further investigation.
‘There is sufficiently reliable evidence as to the crown prince’s responsibility calling for further investigation,’ Callamard said after the six-month investigation.
A classified version of the report was shared with members of Congress at the end of 2018.
But the Trump administration has rejected requests from lawmakers and human rights groups to release a confirmed version, trying to maintain cooperation amid rising tensions with Riyadh, Iran’s regional rival, and encouraging sales. the US military to the kingdom.
Biden’s new director of intelligence, Avril Haines, at her confirmation hearing pledged compliance with a provision in the 2019 defense bill that asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to issue a report within 30 days of Khashoggi’s murder.
Biden promised during a major 2020 campaign a reassessment of U.S.-Saudi ties in part over the Khashoggi assassination.
Since taking office, he has completed the sale of offensive weapons that could be used by Riyadh in Yemen and has appointed a special ambassador to encourage diplomatic efforts to end that country’s grim civil war.
Bin Salman has denied involvement in the October 2018 murder of Khashoggi.
Khashoggi fled Saudi Arabia in September 2017 to live as a self-imposed refugee. He was writing columns critical of the Saudi government – including both King Salman and MBS – for the Washington Post when he was killed.
Biden is working to bring relations with Riyadh back to traditional lines after four years of cozier ties under former president Donald Trump. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was close to bin Salman – the three men can be seen together in Riyadh in May 2017
Biden’s call with the king comes after the White House last week announced a resumption of America’s friendship with Saudi Arabia.
‘We have made it clear from the outset that we are going to renew our relationship with Saudi Arabia,’ Psaki said last week.
She said part of that renegotiation would involve Biden talking to the Saudi king, instead of MBS – a major change in policy since the Trump administration.
The Biden administration is shifting America’s relationship with the Middle East country after Trump prioritized U.S. relations with the Saudis, making his first overseas trip in 2017 to Riyadh.
Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner was close to MBS, who became the next line into the throne in June 2017 after a power struggle to wipe out a rival.
Kushner ‘s close relationship with him – the two were texted and communicated through apps – raised eyebrows because it was happening outside of diplomatic channels, Kushner’ s lack of foreign policy knowledge and MBS ‘reputation as a despot.
The crown prince is accused of torturing human rights activists; a Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen that has exacerbated humanitarian crisis and famine; and arrested members of the Saudi royal family in November 2017 where he imprisoned several of his royal cousins at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyad.