US Report on Khashoggi Murder Must Reveal Involved Individuals: UN Rapporteur

By Staff, Agencies

The United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, said the US intelligence report on the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi must reveal the individuals involved in the killing.

Callmard told the Middle East Eye [MEE] news portal that those behind Khashoggi’s murder must be identified, and the possible involvement of the Saudi crown prince must be investigated too.

"Mr. Khashoggi’s killing constituted an extrajudicial killing for which State responsibility attaches," Callamard said.

"Now, we need to move to the second question: Who within the state commissioned the killing, incited the killing, failed to prevent the killing or created the conditions that made the killing possible?" Callamard said. "These are the questions I would expect this intelligence report to answer."

Earlier this week, the US Congress passed a law ordering the Director of National Intelligence [DNI] to present a report to legislators revealing details of the probe into who ordered the killing and attempted to cover it up.

Callamard said the DNI’s report should include the CIA’s classified briefings on the murder to Congress late last year - which pointed to the involvement of the Saudi crown prince.

In November last year, The Washington Post reported that the CIA had concluded that Mohammed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman [MBS] had personally ordered the assassination.

However, Washington attempted to whitewash his role in the gruesome assassination of Khashoggi despite the CIA report.

Khashoggi – a US resident, The Washington Post columnist, and a leading critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – entered the Saudi consulate in Turkey’s Istanbul on October 2 to obtain documents for his pending marriage, but he never left the mission.

Audio tapes that the Turkish government later shared with the world verified that he had been killed and then dismembered by 15 Saudi hitmen.