Main suspect in Khashoggi killing reappears in public as MBS visits Paris

Issued on: 22/06/2023 – 22:03Modified: 22/06/2023 – 22:07

Spotted in one of the videos circulating on social media last weekend, Saoud al-Qahtani, a former special adviser to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), was all smiles, assisted by a walking cane and accompanied by a group of people. 

Online footage posted on Twitter showed Qahtani at a social gathering purportedly hosted by a Saudi real estate developer in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah on June 18. 

Up until now, the crown prince’s alleged henchman had kept a low profile and had not been seen publicly since the assassination of 59-year-old Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The latter, a longtime critic of the Saudi royal family and a columnist for The Washington Post, was murdered on October 2, 2018 inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. His body was never recovered. 

Although regarded as one of the main orchestrators of the killing by Washington following multiple probes, Qahtani was acquitted by a Saudi court in December 2019.

A comeback for Qahtani? 

Qahtani’s reappearance last Sunday comes at a time when MBS is looking to patch over relations with the West after being sidelined since the Khashoggi affair.  

Currently in Paris for an extended state visit, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler met with French President Emmanuel Macron last Friday and is attending Thursday’s Summit for a New Global Financial Pact aimed at rethinking the world’s financial system to account for the fallout of climate change.

While Parisian spotlights are focused on MBS as he charms his way back into Western circles, Qahtani’s public appearance went far from unnoticed on the international scene, gathering praise from some and criticism from others. 

“It seems that he is mentally and physically devastated, for this is little for him in the face of what he has done against the innocent,” Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, quipped via her Twitter account.

A similar reaction came from the family of Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who was released in 2021 after spending nearly three years in prison, where she was tortured.

“Al-Qhatani, who was identified as the mastermind behind the assassination of Khashoggi, is back [in public]. He is also the one who tortured my sister Loujain. MBS welcoming al-Assad and now rehabilitating Saud al-Qahtani,” Hathloul’s sister Lina al-Hathloul said in a post on Twitter. 

In an interview, Hathloul’s sister alleged that Qahtani supervised the torture of Hathloul and himself threatened to rape and kill her. 

Like the Hathloul family, many were unconvinced, in spite of the Saudi court’s ruling, of Qahtani’s innocence in the Khashoggi affair. The Turkish justice system continued its investigation until April last year, when the trial of 26 suspects including Qahtani was suspended and transferred to Saudi Arabia.  

Riyadh dismissed Qahtani from his position as royal adviser in an attempt to calm international outcry sparked by the Khashoggi affair. 

Despite losing his official seat at the crown prince’s table, many suggest that Qahtani is still included in MBS’s inner circle and remains active in Saudi Arabia’s cyber-operations, which is essential in helping the regime muffle dissenting voices.

Guilty beyond doubt 

In November 2018, a month after Khashoggi’s death, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi nationals including Qahtani for their involvement in the Khashoggi affair. “Saud al-Qahtani is a senior official of the Government of Saudi Arabia who was part of the planning and execution of the operation that led to the killing of Mr. Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, 2018,” the US Treasury said in its press release.  

In an article published by Reuters citing Turkish and Arab intelligence, Qahtani’s presence during the murder of Khashoggi was, though virtual via Skype, a key part of the deed.  

Insulting Khashoggi over the phone before ordering his killing after the journalist was ambushed in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, Qahtani later instructed his men to dispose of Khashoggi’s body. He was quoted as saying “Bring me the head of the dog.”  

Qahtani has always denied acting without the crown prince’s approval.  

“Do you think I make decisions on my own? I am an employee and I faithfully carry out the orders of my lord the king and my lord the crown prince,” he wrote on his Twitter account, which has since been blocked, in August 2017.  

According to an intelligence report released in 2021, MBS “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi”. Citing MBS’s influence, the report said it was “highly unlikely” that the 2018 murder could have taken place without his approval.  

The US government has however refrained from sanctioning Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler; the Biden administration affirmed MBS’s immunity as head of state in November 2022. This resulted in a US court’s dismissal of a civil lawsuit filed by Cengiz last year against the Saudi crown prince. 

While Khashoggi’s murder came as a shock to many, Khashoggi himself had noted in a Washington Post column in February, 2018 that the Saudi regime targets writers and journalists who speak out against MBS, even pointing an accusatory finger at Qahtani, surnamed “Mr. Hashtag” from the time he was in charge of a digital unit whose mission was to intimidate critics of the Saudi royal family.  

“Over the past 18 months, MBS’s communications team within the Royal Court publicly has chastised, and worse, intimidated anyone who disagrees. Saud Al-Qahtani, leader of that unit, has a blacklist and calls for Saudis to add names to it. Writers like me, whose criticism is offered respectfully, seem to be considered more dangerous than the more strident Saudi opposition based in London,” he wrote.   

This article is adapted from the original in French.