Jamal Khashoggi: A Double-Agent Killed in Istanbul by Saudi Operatives

The New York Times labeled Jamal Khashoggi “a journalist critical of the Saudi government.”[1] His day job was being a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Articles he wrote “included criticism of Saudi Arabia’s government. On [October 2, 2018], he entered the [Saudi] consulate in Istanbul and never emerged.”[2] Khashoggi was also a double agent, and it is for this rather than merely critical articles that he was really killed and cut into pieces in the consulate.

After “weeks of Saudi insistence that Mr. Khashoggi had left the consulate, unharmed, hours after entering,” Saudi Arabia’s government announced the “Khashoggi had been killed in a brawl inside the [Saudi] consulate [in Turkey].”[3] According to Turkish officials, the Saudi version was that “Khashoggi [had] died in a botched attempt at interrogation and abduction.”[4] Turkish officials even claimed to have recordings of the torture and killing.”[5]

The whole thing had been a “’’tremendous mistake’ by Saudi operatives acting ‘outside the scope of their authority,” said Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister. [6] What “compounded the mistake,” he continued, would be the attempt to try to cover up.”[7]

It is highly improbable, I submit, that 15 operatives would be sent without the approval of the Saudi government at its highest level. Turkish government officials firmly believed that Khashoggi’s death was ordered at the highest level of the [Saudi] kingdom.”[8] They told the media anonymously “that a team of 15 Saudis flew to Istanbul on Oct. 2 to kill Mr. Khashoggi, most likely on the orders of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.”[9] Additionally, the former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service (MI6), John Sawers, observed at the time, “It’s very hard not to point a finger at [the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia].”[10] So, why would the highest level of the Saudi government go so far as to kill a Saudi journalist living in Virginia? Why all the lies? The Turkish Prime Minister picked up on them from the beginning.

I contend, from an anonymous American source, that Jamal Khashoggi was a double agent whom the Saudis killed and cut up into pieces (so as to sneak the remains out of the consulate in Istanbul). Just months earlier, the world witnessed the attempted assassination on British soil of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who acted as a double agent.[11] So the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia could have considered killing Jamal Khashoggi as the appropriate response.
By implication, the world’s public could see only the lies meant ultimately to hide the fact that the Saudi Government killed a man who was not just a critical journalist who had left the kingdom in more ways than one. Behind the scenes lies the real story in more cases than the public could imagine. Such secrecy has always been a part of governing (and campaigning), but at some level the lies must surely impede democracy. Of course, autocratic governments would naturally be unmoved by such a constraint, but what about the U.S. Government, or at least its military, in keeping the real story hidden even from Americans?

1. Carlotta Gall and Ben Hubbard, “Turkey’s President Vows to Detail Khashoggi Death ‘in Full Nakedness,” The New York Times, October 21, 2018.

2. Emily Rauhala and Anton Troianovski, “The World Has a Question for the White House: When Do Murders Matter?” The Washington Post, October 19, 2018.

3. Carlotta Gall and Ben Hubbard, “Turkey’s President Vows to Detail Khashoggi Death ‘in Full Nakedness,” The New York Times, October 21, 2018.

4. Ibid.

5.Ibid.

6.Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Mary Papenfuss, “’Compelling Evidence’ Points to Saudi Prince in Khashoggi Death, Says Ex-MI6 Chief,” The Huffington Post, October 20, 2018.

11. Emily Rauhala and Anton Troianovski, “The World Has a Question for the White House: When Do Murders Matter?” The Washington Post, October 19, 2018.