Ariana News Agency-\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Another three men were dispatched to jail; three more were acquitted. The outcome was, in the words of human-rights experts with whom I spoke after the verdict was announced, \u201ctypical Saudi justice.\u201d The trial was held in secret. The government\u2019s evidence was never publicly released. The convicted were never named, even in the verdict.<\/p>\n And the few diplomats allowed to attend the trial had to swear that they would not disclose any details or identities. Most strikingly, the three men widely believed to be ultimately responsible for Khashoggi\u2019s murder\u2014including the powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, his close adviser, Saud al-Qahtani, and the former deputy head of intelligence, Ahmed al-Assiri\u2014got off scot-free.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a surprise. It is true to form,\u201d Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, told me. \u201cThe Saudis are compounding their stream of laughable lies with a laughable verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n Both the C.I.A. and the U.N. implicated M.B.S., as the crown prince is commonly known, in Khashoggi\u2019s murder. During the past two years, the ambitious young royal has consolidated Saudi Arabia\u2019s five major branches of power under his gold-embroidered robe. He has also been the key Saudi liaison to the Trump Administration and a close ally of Trump\u2019s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.<\/p>\n Khashoggi, a former unofficial spokesman for the oil-rich monarchy, fled the kingdom in 2017 and took residence in the United States, where he became the prince\u2019s most vocal and visible critic. Weeks before his death, Khashoggi told me that M.B.S., still only the heir apparent to the Saudi throne, had already become more autocratic than any of the previous six kings. He compared the prince\u2019s absolute powers to those of Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader: \u201cHe has no tolerance or willingness to accommodate critics.\u201d<\/p>\n In one of Khashoggi\u2019s early columns for the Post, he says that he has to write as his conscience dictates. \u201cTo do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison,\u201d he writes. \u201cI can speak when so many cannot. I want you to know that Saudi Arabia has not always been as it is now. We Saudis deserve better.\u201d<\/p>\n M.B.S.\u2019s culpability\u2014and premeditation\u2014was the issue implicitly on trial. The kingdom originally lied, saying that Khashoggi had walked out of the consulate shortly after he\u2019d arrived. It took three weeks for the government to admit that he\u2019d been murdered; it claimed that the execution was a rogue operation, despite the extraordinary planning required for a sophisticated covert operation on foreign soil.<\/p>\n Turkey then released videotapes of two Saudi hit squads\u2014comprising fifteen people in total\u2014arriving in Istanbul the day before the murder. It had video of Khashoggi going into the consulate.<\/p>\n Turkish intelligence recorded all that followed, including Khashoggi\u2019s struggle to fight off Saudi security, his gasping suffocation, and the bone-sawing that followed, as his body was cut up into pieces. The Turks also had video footage of a body double\u2014one of the men who had flown in for the operation\u2014leaving the diplomatic mission dressed in Khashoggi\u2019s clothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" on Monday, the authoritarian kingdom of Saudi Arabia sentenced five operatives to death for the grisly murder and dismemberment of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, in October, 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_mat_hreflang_tags":[],"addvideo":"","video_duration":"","farsit":"","target":"0","top_stories":"0","top":"0"},"categories":[305,306],"tags":[194,247,82,83],"class_list":["post-4632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-human-rights","tag-human-rights","tag-jamal-khashggi","tag-mohammed-bin-salman","tag-saudi-arabia"],"acf":{"myctype":"change","target":false,"top_stories":false,"top":false,"farsit":""},"yoast_head":"\n