What's behind Khashoggi?

On 28 September, Saudi journalist living in the United States Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabia Consulate in Istanbul to get some documents he needed to marry his fiancée and has not left her.

Her fiancée waited for hours and then called the police. The day it was supposed to be marriage, Khashogg still hasn't looked, and it was then that Reuters has been telling news of his disappearance.

While Turkey summoned Saudi Ambassador and Minister of the Heritage, Mohammed bin Salman, was ready to co-operate with any investigation into the event, and Saudi authorities issued an official statement suggesting that Khahoggi might have disappeared after leaving the consulate, disturbing news began to emerge.

According to Turkish media, on the day of the journalist's disappearance, the Turkish staff of the Saudi consulate was reported to stay at home, and a private plane has arrived from Riyadi aboard 9 Kingdom intelligence employees, who would then go to the consulate.

Over time it has become increasingly clear that both things were connected, until October 8th an anonymous source of Turkish intelligence has told the Washington Post that Khashogg had been killed within the Saudi consulate.

In the hours and days ahead, voices have begun to circulate, have become more and more persistent, and have been enriched hand in detail: Khashoggi has been torn apart and removed from the consulate with a black van, there's a video of torture and murder, there's been a vicious kidnapping attempt. It was then that what looked like a complicated thing was transformed into an international circle.

Initially, through its minister of interior, Saudi Arabia has been positioned, denouncing the false “around the media” against it for the disappearance of Khahoggi and calling the rumours of his murder “lies and baseless charges against the Kingdom government”.

But then it had to face the international pressures of Turkey and the United States in particular: On the night of October 15th, Turkish police have checked the consulate, revealing that the interior of the building was completely untainted (and virtually a video presented by al-Jazeera shot a few hours ago shows the entrance to a cleaning company building).

Meanwhile, after consulting Turkish intelligence sources, the New York Times wrote that films and audio in possession of Turks demonstrated that Khashoggi has been tortured, cut off his fingers and then beheaded and torn to pieces.

Of the recent developments, it seems virtually certain that Khahogg has been killed within the Saudi consulate: quite eloquently, having suspected about 20 days, the Washington Post has decided to publish the last article written by journalist for the column it carried.

As far back as Trump initially downplayed by saying that, since the journalist was not an American citizen, he would not interrupt the shipments of Saudi Arabia's weapons, he had to admit that Khashogg seems to have died in case the responsibility was discovered to Saudis, then they would have serious consequences.

Meanwhile, in Western newspapers, the sentry that is being forwarded reduces everything to the murder of a journalist and Saudi dissident - a superficial and wrong synthesis, which causes us to misunderstand the extent of this story and what's going on backstage.

Who was Jamal Khashoggi

Jamal Khashogg was 60 years old and was the most famous journalist in the Arab world. He had worked for various Arab world newspapers, but also as foreign correspondents; he was twice editor-in-chief of al-Wattan, Saudi progressive newspaper, and director of al-Arabme television centre in Bahrain. Part of his reputation is due to the fact that in the 1990s, he was a journalist with the closest contact with Osama bin Laden, who followed him closely and interviewed him several times in both Sudan and his Tora Bora raid in Afghanistan.

For his activities, Khashogg has been silenced many times by Saudi censorship. In 2003 he lost his job to al-Watan from a critical article on Ibn Taymiya, considered the founding father of Wahhabiism.

In 2016, after criticising Donald Trump, Saudi authorities had banned him from writing in newspapers and showing up on television.

More recently, he had criticised the military campaign against Yemen and the very powerful heir prince Mohammed bin Salman: following these positions and feeling threatened, he had decided to leave Saudi Arabia for Washington.

Despite his highly critical positions on the Saudi government, however, Khashogg remained a prominent member of the Kingdom elite.

His grandfather Muhammad Khashoggi, of Turkish origin, was the personal physician of King Abdulaziz al-Saud, founder of Saudi Arabia; his uncle was very famous and very powerful arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.

In the years of dealt with Saudi secret services with the task of trying to persuade Osama bin Laden to give up violence, and in the years of 1,900, he had been responsible for communications by Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi ambassador to the United States.

In short, not exactly the dissident and political opposition presented in many Western newspapers. And that's why his murder is extremely important: it's a message to the real dissidents to say that if one like Khashogg is eliminated like this, then they can only hope for worse.

What's going on between the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey

Although apparently in conflict, in reality what is going on between Washington, Ankara and Riyadh is a complex diplomatic game, whose goal is to enable all to preserve their faces. None in the first place in the United States really wants to be brought against Saudis, who are a strategic ally for different motives: from oil supplies to arms sale, from military bases to the centre of a diplomatic network to curb Iranian influence in the Middle East. As far as Trump initially practically said that, since he was not an American citizen, he didn't give a damn about his disappearance, but even when he had corrected the target, it has been to charge stray parts of the secret services.

According to the daily Foglio, it is Turkey's true winner of this story practically, Turkey's behaviour, which says it has overwhelming evidence produced by film footage and audio recordings made within the consulate that would demonstrate that Khahoggi has been tortured and killed is ambition.

“E have built the case without reaching the final stage, modified news leaks and, however, not showing the crucial video. It's like they had a gun pointed at Saudis and they probably made a lot of demands”, writes Foglio.

In reality, neither should they oppose Saudis -- it's all a diplomatic ballet. In fact, it is clear what is the perfect solution for all three parties involved: an investigation to state that Khashogg was practically killed in consulates, but that clears up the high levels of the Saudi government, placing responsibilities on any Turkish head of command -- that is, the limited secret services Trump ] was talking about -- to enable Turkey and the United States to pass over -- countries that allow their allies to unwittingly and unreasonably violate human rights and kill journalists in light of the sun, but also allow the government of Saudi Arabia to pass through some relatively clean province in Ankara and Washington.

What will be the effect of this situation?

Even if the operation was released (and successful) successfully, the disappearance and murder of Khashogg will have a long-lived effect: it will weigh heavily on the image of Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Patriarch Prince or, as they call it, MbS.

Over the past few years, MMS has made great efforts to build the image of the young prince “formative”, both in the economic framework where it launched Saudi Vision 2030, an ambitious programme in order to remove Saudi economy from oil and attract international investment both in the social framework.

The decision to allow women to drive cars and allow them after 35 years of movie reopening in the country has been initiatives taken in this judiciary, and over a period have also worked: virtually all Western newspapers have echoed his propaganda, talking about “Accession” coming with the new Prince.

In reality, it was about cosmetic operations that didn't change the civil rights situation in Saudi Arabia at all and that even tried to present as a merit of Principation on Prince's mind that, in fact, were the achievements of Saudi protests: for example, the decision to allow women to drive cars came shortly after the arrest of various activists who have long fought for that goal.

Since last November, MMS image had been damaged when it undertook a police operation to consolidate its powers that had led to the arrest of dozens of elite and Saudi royal exhibitors at Ritz-Carlton Hotel Riyadi. But then he was through talking about “anticorruption measures”. But this time the Prince seems to have exaggerated and killed a popular and yet a little dangerous journalist like Khahoggi especially from the brutality and the above-mentioned modalities: the victim has been trapped into a diplomatic representation in a third country certainly will be a stain on the image of the reformer whom the Prince has paid so much (and so much money) to build.

More than that, it can cost much more than one's reputation. Soon will launch Futuration Initiative Investment, an economic summit organised by the Prince and dubbed “desert Davidos”, but sponsors, different partner media like the New York Times and guests as CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Ford, Uber and Virgin Group have already announced they will not take part in protest of Khasoggi's disappearance and murder. In the last few hours, there are voices asking Saudi King Salman to replace him and appoint another heir instead. /bota.al