Genghis, who was engaged to Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents at the Istanbul consulate in 2018, said she wanted Prince Mohammed to be arrested for murder when he landed in London, but said she feared the UK authorities would turn a blind eye to serious and credible allegations against the future king. A source told the Guardian that Prince Mohammed will travel to the UK to offer his kingdom’s condolences to the royal family, although there has been no confirmation or information on whether he will attend the funeral at Westminster Abbey. CNN Arabic first reported the news on Thursday night. A declassified US intelligence report published in 2021 found that the operation to kill or kidnap Khashoggi was approved by Prince Mohammed. The intelligence report said its assessment was based on the crown prince’s “control of decision-making” in the kingdom, the “direct involvement of a key adviser and members of [the prince’s] protective detail’ and his ‘support for the use of violent measures’ to silence dissenters like Khashoggi. The crown prince denied that he was personally involved in planning the assassination. “The death of the queen is a truly sad occasion,” Cengiz said. “The successor should not be allowed to participate in this mourning and not be allowed to sully her memory and use this mourning to seek legitimacy and normalization.” News that the Saudi crown prince would make his first trip to London since 2018 was met with dismay among some Saudi exiles, including Abdullah Alaoudh, a prominent Washington-based Saudi dissident who serves as director Dawn research. non-profit organization founded by Khashoggi that promotes democracy in the Middle East. Alaoudh said Prince Mohammed’s trip came as Saudi Arabia cracks down on human rights defenders at home, including the recent arrest of a 34-year-old PhD student at Leeds University named Salma al-Shehab, who was arrested on a holiday trip at home in the kingdom and sentenced to 34 years in prison for using Twitter. “He is afraid to travel around the world after the Khashoggi affair as a result of the dedicated rehabilitation process – whether they call it that or not – by Western leaders,” Alaoudh said, pointing to visits to the kingdom by Boris Johnson and Joe Biden. . In its report, CNN Arabic reported that Prince Mohammed will not attend the funeral. Alaoudh, whose father is a well-known reformist cleric facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, said he believed the decision probably reflected the crown prince’s fragile ego because, Alaoudh said, he probably would not want to attend a funeral in which could not have sat in a conspicuous place. “He would sit behind other powerful figures,” Alaoudh said. “But MBS wants full recognition of his power, his existence, that he is in the front row. He cares a lot about these symbols and doesn’t want them to humiliate him.” Another activist, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, UK-based director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: “Authoritarian dictators should not use the queen’s death as an opportunity to try to restore their image while escalating their repressive campaigns. Countries.” Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, which previously investigated the killing of Khashoggi, whose life was reportedly threatened by a senior Saudi official, said Prince Mohammed’s plan to pay tribute brought to mind the killing of her journalist Washington Post. , whose family had been “denied the right to bury Jamal with the dignity he deserved.” Saudi Arabia has denied ever intending to threaten Kalamar. The crown prince’s visit follows years of reports after Khashoggi’s assassination that critics of the kingdom living abroad have faced surveillance and threats from Saudi authorities, including the UK. A British judge ruled last month that a case against the kingdom brought by a dissident satirist who was targeted with spyware could go ahead, in a decision hailed as a precedent. The case against Saudi Arabia was brought by Ghanem Almasarir, a prominent satirist granted asylum in the UK who is a frequent critic of the Saudi royal family. At the heart of the case are allegations that Saudi Arabia ordered the hacking of Almasarir’s phone and that he was physically assaulted by agents of the kingdom in London in 2018. Saudi Arabia’s attempt to dismiss the case on the grounds that it had sovereign immunity protection under the State Immunity Act of 1978 was rejected by a high court judge, who found Almasarir had provided enough evidence to conclude, in relation with the odds, that Saudi Arabia was responsible for the alleged attack. Saudi Arabia’s claim that the case was too weak or speculative to proceed was dismissed.
