T. Belman. From what we read, the Khashoggi attackers were as negligent and error prone as the Keystone Cops. This account is more believable. The plan was to drug him and then take him back to Saudi Arabia for trial just as Israel did with Eichmann. But Khashoggi died as a result of the drugging.
BY MIKE EVANS, JPOST – NOVEMBER 20, 2018
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/
It appears that Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood are one, and that included sympathizer, and colleague Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi Arabian officials have conceded complicity in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The time has come to shed light on Turkey’s position in the matter. It is recognized by many that the main battle was not between Khashoggi and the Saudis, but rather a clash between Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The struggle is not over the death of the journalist, but rather for control of the entire Sunni world.
Turkey under Erdogan seems to be headed in the same direction Iran is today—an oppressive, tyrannical, Islamic leadership with a so-called democracy. Such a happenstance would make it as difficult for the United States to have a working relationship as does that of Iran. Rather than fostering a rapport with the West, Turkey’s leader seems determined to destroy the association by the choices he makes.
Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Arabian Embassy but did not walk out. It appears that an attempt was made to drug him and return him to his home country to stand trial for charges against the Saudi government. According to some sources, Khashoggi was not garroted; instead he stopped breathing after he was drugged.
Article 6 of Saudi Arabian basic law states it is “punishable by imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years and a fine of not more than SAR 3 million [$800,000] or one of these penalties for a number of crimes, including the production of anything that violates public order, religious values, morals, the inviolability of private life, or preparation, transmission or storage of it through the Internet or a computer.”
I was quietly told – first in Israel by a former high-level member of the Mossad, and later in a meeting with Egyptian intelligence officials – that Crown Prince bin Salman approved the mission to arrest Khashoggi and bring him to justice, as Israel had done with Adolf Eichmann. Unfortunately, the persons charged with secretly arresting the journalist and flying him back to stand trial for incitement accidentally killed him with an overdose and then panicked. It was then that the cover-up ensued.
Shortly thereafter, I flew to the United Arab Emirates and heard the story repeated twice more. While in the various countries, I met with His Royal Highness Crown Prince bin Salman, the Saudi deputy prime minister, and defense minister.
Despite rabid finger-pointing by Turkey, the Saudis were well aware that cameras were trained on consulate corridors. The main issues are the video and the quote from the Turkish paper, the government-run mouthpiece for Erdogan.
Turkish officials immediately leaked the Khashoggi affair to Al Jazeera, the official television channel in Qatar—a country at odds with Saudi Arabia. Since the death of the journalist, the station has offered a 24/7 discourse on the matter, using any means to implicate the Saudi Crown Prince. Information that Khashoggi had asked his fiancé, Hatice Cengiz, to personally contact Erdogan’s aide, Yasin Aktay, should he not return from the consulate. That direct link to Turkey’s president was deemed undesirable and prompted an order that Aktay halt appearances on Al Jazeera, and to stop making references to Erdogan.
Leaks from Turkish intelligence (MIT) regarding events inside the consulate are so detailed that one has to wonder how, when, and why clandestine devises were planted inside the building, as well as the home of the Saudi consul. MIT must have known that an attempt to kidnap Khashoggi was imminent. Not surprisingly, Erdogan has failed to present taped recordings of conversations inside the Saudi consulate that were made days before the death of the journalist. Any speculation on the why must include the theory that the Turkish president knew of the plan only to return Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia.
Recognizing the tension between the journalist and the Crown Prince because of personal attacks by Khashoggi in the Washington Post, knowing that 15 Saudi nationals had arrived on private planes that same day, he was allowed to walk inside the consulate. According to one unidentified source in Saudi, “No one was authorized to kill Khashoggi. We knew we had every right to smuggle him out and arrest him, as he is a Saudi citizen.”
I was in a delegation that had a two-hour meeting with the Crown Prince, and told him the story of “Operation Eichmann.” I knew it well because Isser Harel, who planned the operation, shared it with me at his home one evening over dinner.
At the close of World War II, Adolf Eichmann assumed various aliases and identities in an attempt to elude Allied authorities and evade responsibility for his wartime atrocities. Eichmann was the Nazi transportation administrator assigned the duty of ensuring that trains packed with Jews heading to the death camps were kept in good working order.
In 1960, the Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Agency, then headed by Isser Harel, planned and executed “Operation Finale.” The intelligence agents tracked Eichmann to his village, drugged him and brought him to Israel. There, the fugitive stood trial on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes against the Jewish people.
He was convicted in 1961, and after all appeals were exhausted, he was hanged. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered across the Mediterranean. Such was the plan for Jamal Khashoggi, a plan that went awry, resulting in his death.
I told the crown prince that I believe he did the same thing and drugged Khashoggi to bring him back and charge him with incitement, but the drug killed him. The Prince never denied it; he simply talked about how unfortunate the whole event was. He said “even a prince can make a mistake.”
Who or what inspired Erdogan to become involved in the turmoil surrounding Jamal Khashoggi’s death? There is one simple answer: the Muslim Brotherhood. In meetings with the Crown Prince in Abu Dhabi and with Egyptian president Sisi, it was apparent that organization is hated in their countries. Erdogan has welcomed them with open arms, providing assistance and asylum, granting members the right to congregate and strategize against Sisi’s government.
It appears that Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood are one, and that included sympathizer, and colleague Jamal Khashoggi. President Erdogan sacrificed his friend in order to implicate the Saudis and particularly Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman. The Washington Post journalist was the pawn in Erdogan’s game. He was sacrificed in order to get to the king—or in this case, the Crown Prince.
Mike Evans is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with 89 published books, including The New Hitler. He is the founder of Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem of which the late President Shimon Peres, Israel’s ninth president, was the chair. He also serves on the Trump Evangelical Faith Initiative.
Israel’s exports to Gulf states worth almost $1 billion, study suggests
Security cooperation is sharing intel on Iran plus potential free air passage to Iran for Israeli Jets over Saudi Arabia. The Saudis may also have bought an Iron Dome to fend off Houti missiles as it works better than the Patriots they now have. https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/middle-east/181924-180816-israel-s-exports-to-gulf-states-worth-almost-1-billion-study-suggests
@ Bear Klein:
“Benefits in security and trade”??? What security? What trade? They don’t need us!!! Haaa and there is little we have, they need, want or can’t get from other sources. They are duplicitous, unreliable and may not be around much longer.
“Is it true that Mr. Kashoggi was killed by global warming?”
“We’re looking at all possibilities”
Israel needs no peace plan with Saudi Arabia.
However, the cooperation that is going on is mutually beneficial and has more potential benefits in the future on security and in trade.
MBS is a constructive leader and Trump was very pragmatic in not putting too much pressure on him. The hypocrites on the left who ignored Iran killing and imprisoning lots of its people watched silently as Obama ignored this to make a deal to give them billions of dollars and a path to nukes.
Since The Saudis seem to be the linchpin of the Trump (yet to be formally announced) Piece Plan and I know the plan will be suicidal for Israel even if rejected by Israel, should we not be relieved that the main cog in the plan is teetering???
@ adamdalgliesh:
Thanks Adam for your good wishes.
As for the rest of your post ….if it’s read the way it’s written, it definitely makes a good case for the Saudis not wanting or needing to kill Kashoggi…… On a comparison scale regarding Kashoggi just as a Journalist, the Turks are far more likely to kill a journalist than the Saudis. Hugo and you show that positively.
Which all makes the Evans article above by far the most likely scenario for what actually happened. And very possibly bin Salman’s lame excuses are because he was caught short by the totally unexpected end result. But if Kashoggi actually entered the Embassy, how could the Turks then have got hold of him. The Embassy staff admit that he was there, and they make no mention of him having left…which would have been their alibi, easily coming to mind…but they did not take that path at all because of the cameras…
Again, considering bin Salman’s absorbing interest in Isser Harels account to Evans as to how they got Eichmann back to Israel….. it looks a definite Saudi attempt to follow the same blueprint ..which went wrong. I don’t care a whit about Kashoggi, he was a Muslim Brotherhood supporter or member, and hated Israel. My interest is in the “mystery as to what actually happened…
The mutilations have an obvious explanation. They knew that every entrance was videoed by the Turks, and we are told by lawmen that when there’s a dead body, the hardest thing, is to get rid of it undetected. So some bright boy got the idea of cutting it up into small pieces which could be brought out and disposed of, unobserved. This had been done before many times, in other countries….
Speculation, I know, but this is what I think…..
@ adamdalgliesh:
“Qui Bono,”(who benefits?)
Of course, Erdogan benefits — you are very right there. The leaders of Russia, China, North Korea and Turkey will all be toasted like marshmallows in hell, possibly ahead of the Saudis. But they have been ignored, while a worldwide attack is focused on an ally of the US and Israel. I am not surprized at any of this.
@ Edgar G.: Yes, I am glad you came back, Edgar. Welcome home. Many thanks for your support for my postings and for supplying us all with so much useful information over the past several years.
As for my Erdogan conspiracy theory, see my replies to Hugo above, and also to Michael, as to why I think it is a reasonable hypothesis. I admit that it is only one of several possibilities. However, I believe that I can demonstrate that the killing fits more readily into the pattern of the past behavior of the Turkish security services than it does into the pattern of the past behavior of the Saudi services. Certainly far more journalists have been murdered by the Turks than by the Saudis. Also, I don’t see what possible motive the Saudis would have had for carrying out such a murder, especially in one of their consulates , which they must have known was under constant surveillance by the Turkish authorities. There is absolutely no evidence of their having murdered anyone in one of their diplomatic missions before. The only other case that I have heard of of someone being murdered in a diplomatic mission was at the PLO mission in Prague . And we all know that the PLO are murderers.
The Saudis had no clear motive for the murder. They have tolerated Saudi exiles in Washington, DC criticizing hteir regime for years. These dissidents even publish a web site in Washington. And many of them have not been afraid to identify themselves by name in public, both before and after the Kashoggi murder. Saudi dissidents in Canada have also done this. What was so unusual about Kashoggi that would lead the Saudis to think they had to murder him, when they tolerate other dissidents as long as they are living abroad? And those who live in Saudi Arabia are often arrested, but very few have been killed.
It would have made no sense for the Saudis to bump off Kashoggi. But it would have made perfect sense for the Turks to do so, since the Saudis are the arch enemies of the Turks’ allies Iran and Hamas, and have been covertly dealing with Israel, whom Erdogan hates with a passion. Discrediting and isolating Saudi Arabia by killing Kashoggi and falsely pinning the blame on the Saudis would make perfect sense from the point of view of Turkish strategic goals.
See also Hugo’s postings above, in which he informs us of the corporations and governments, especially in Germany, that have a financial interset in discrediting MBS and installing a less Iran-hostile regime in Saudi Arabia.
@ Michael S: Michael, I am not a polioce officer or prosecutor, and hence have no way of proving anything. And even honest, competent police officers and prosecutors sometimes fail in their efforts to prove someone guilty of a crime, even when extensive circumstantial evidence points in that person’s direction.
This much admitted, I think that there is enough published information about the character and methods employed by the Erdogan regime, including assassinations, torture, and the manufacture of fake news, including fake audios and videos, to enable a descerning member of the general public to regard Erdogan as a “person of interest” in the Kashoggi case. Certainly when we ask the classic prosecutor’s question, “Qui Bono,”(who benefits?), the logical answer is Erdogan. The assassination has played a major role in easing the tensions between his government and the U.S. It most certainly has not benefited the Saudis.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer: Again, thanks, Hugo, for this very important and relevant information. You are an absolute gold mine of facts! Best wishes, Adam.
Thanks for this important background information, Hugo@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
adamdalgliesh Said:
Why?
Because they wanted a patsy, a pushover.
Kim Jong-Yang came of age in a despotic regime, wrote a PhD Dissertation at Dongguk University on demonstrations and rioters (how lovely), which was moreover plagiarized (even more lovely). This guy will likely do what they ask him to.
The other guy, his competitor Alexander Prokoptchuk, was a bastard, and he was Putin’s bastard, not ours. So they stuck with Kim Jong-Yang.
Why they got rid of the predecessor the Chinese Meng Hongwei who very bizarrely just disappeared, is still a mystery. I mean imagine, the head of a serious supranational law enforcement agency just disappears from the face of the earth from one day to the next. Apparently, it suited everyone just fine. Strange.
@ adamdalgliesh:
“While I can’t prove this…”
Five very weighty words.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
I am sure that I had written a post to you on your comment about Evans relating the Eichman abduction to the Kashoggi affair. I agreed with you to a great extent, but pointed out that the “relating” was only about the proposed means of kidnapping and smuggling out. There obviously was no intent to make any equivalence here..
I pointed out that my opinion was bolstered by Evan’s writing about the 2 hour discussion he had with bin Salman who seemed very interested in the information of the Eichman capture which Evans had obtained from Isser Harel, who had led the project.
That post seems to have disappeared. At least I haven’t been able to find it in any obvious subject topic.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
Dear Hugo, thank you very much for your concern. Ted had removed a post of mine offending me deeply, as I was an originally aggrieved person who responded in kind. So I announced my grievance and that I was permanently leaving the site. I was not happy about doing so, as despite our often strong disputes I felt that we respected one another and had all become “site friends” in a way.
Ted did not then have the full facts, but looked into it and found them. I became convinced to return..
@ Edgar G.:
Please, don’t leave this site!
@ adamdalgliesh:
ADAM-There are many speculations, as shown in your post, in your intention to write an article on the Kashoggi affair. It may the toughest trial to attempt yet. I can see a need to contort contradictory probabilities to achieve your purpose.
In boxing parlance, “because Smith beat Jones, and Jones beat Brown, that is NO guarantee that Smith will beat Brown..” You can’t base your theory on Turkey’s propensity for killing Journalists, to show that HE DID IT. Turkey is a dictatorship, becoming more oppressive by the week, and an average of 1 anti-government journalist dead a year, seems comparatively little-especially with reported hundreds of other citizens..
Mike Evans’ scenario sounds by far the best to me.. It’s completely logical, and lays out almost step by step what most likely DID happen. Other scenarios could also be plausible..
As his use of the quote by Bin Salman indicates, “even a Prince can make a mistake”.
But as always, I look forward to any article you produce. They are far too few anyway.
And I never did thank you for expressing regret that I was leaving this site, and I want to correct that now. Thank you indeed for your sincere regrets. I was intent, but Ted changed my mind.
Khashoggi’s murder is an attempt to drive a wedge between the kingdom the US. In rearranging the political deck chairs to isolate Iran in the Mid-East, Saudi Arabia had crossed some lines.
Back in May 2018, MbS ordered that all Saudi government contracts with Germany be cancelled after Germany announced its intentions to stand by Iran while the US prepared to re-impose sanctions. That decision jeopardized massive contracts with German companies, including Siemens, which had just signed a contract worth around $400 million to deliver five gas turbines for a new Saudi power plant, and Daimler, which had secured an order to supply 600 Mercedes?Benz Citaro buses from Saudi bus operator SAPTCO.
They don’t care about journalists in Turkey. Europeans don’t mind too much either, actually.
Last July, Dutch Prime Minister Rutte quietly let two Iranian diplomats slip home, after it was discovered the Iranians liquidated two opponents of the regime residing in The Netherlands.
Late October, the German government announced it will evict Ertugrul Adil Yigit, a 60-year old Turkish dissident, who had enjoyed asylum in Germany for 36 years. In September 2018, Mr. Yirgit showed up at a joint press conference in Berlin of Frau Angela Merkel and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Yirgit donned a T-shirt inscribed with “Gazetecilere Özgürlük Freedom for Journalists in Turkey”. He was thrown out of the hall by security. Next month, Yirgit received a letter from the Regional Authority Hamburg Center, Department for Foreigners, that he will be deported from Germany.
The Europeans and Turkey, want back their cozy relationship with Iran.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer: I agree with you that the Kashoggi case has no connection with the Eichman case. However, it does have some similarities to the disappearance without a trace of the Chinese president of Interpol, who mysteriously disappeared while on a visit to his native land at almost the same time that Kashoggi disappeared, and hasn’t been heard of since. Why is the president of Interpol a less important person than Kashoggi, and why has no one in the “International community” investigated the disappearance and demanded an explanation from the Chinese?
Thanks, Hugo, for pointing out that far more journalists have ‘disappeared” in Turkey than in Saudi Arabia. This supports my thesis (see above) that it was the Turks, not the Saudis, who murdered Kashoggi.
I need to write an article about the Kashoggi murder demonstrating that it was the Turks, not the Saudis and certainly not MBS, who killed. As for the Saudis and MBS having admitted that the Saudis did it, I believe that is because he was misled into thinking this, not only by the Turks but by the U.S. CIA and DOD as well. In other words , MBS is not a royal murderer, but a royal chump.
While I can’t prove this, I believe there is considerable circumstantial evidence to this effect. The Kashoggi murder does not follow any previous pattern of Saudi behavior, but does follow a pattern of behavior–the murder of journalists–practiced by the Erdogan government and previous Turkish regimes as well. The Erdogan regime also has an established pattern of planting “fake news,” complete with fabricated audios and videos to make false reports seem authentic. As for the Saudis having arrested numerous individuals, charged them with the crime, and publicly accepted guilt, it is probably because the CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) advised MBS that the Turks for were telling the truth. The American deep-staters would have told MBS this because they have developed a relationship with Turkey over many years,
since Turkey has been a NATO member for seventy years. In addition, the Americans want to keep their air bases in Turkey, want Turkish help in the war with ISIS and perhaps Assad, and want to dissuade Turkey from going over to the Russians (even though Turkey has already more or less done this). These short-sighted considerations, and their own misplaced trust in Turkish intelligence, probably motivated the CIA and DOD to mislead the Saudis. Once the Saudis arrested the suspects named by the Turks, they were probably pressured by the Saudi police (who often torture and threaten people , although they have rarely killed anyone in prison) to confess. Since they were innocent and didn’t know what really happened, they made all sorts of inaccurate and inconsistent confessions, creating confusion and suspicion that the Saudis were
were orchestrating a cover-up .
Churchill once said “A lie will circle the globe three times before the truth can even get its pants on.”
Mike Evans, much as I admire his support for Israel, is wrong to relate the Kashoggi case to Eichmann’s abduction.
Evans makes an attempt to exonerate the Saudi’s. The Saudi’s should get along without that help. While I wouldn’t want to live in the Kingdom, during the last 25 years, only 2 journalists were killed in Saudi Arabia, including Jamaal Kashoggi. Meanwhile, 25 Journalists were killed in sanctimonious Turkey during the same period.
Eichmann was brought to face real justice, meticulously carried out in Jerusalem, according to exacting legal norms. I doubt Kashoggi would have met the same fate in Jeddah.
Though he might have tried hard to topple governments and install murderous regimes, Kashoggi’s mischief with the Muslim Brothers never achieved the monstrous magnitude Eichmann attained.
After Eichmann evaded justice for more than a decade, aided by an indifferent world with the complicit support of Nazis by Germany and Argentina, Israel saw no other recourse than abducting the war criminal. It was an extraordinary case.
It would more behoove us to compare the presumably failed abduction, (the presumption which I doubt), to compare it with the scores of abductions of South Koreans and Japanese by North Koreans, or of Western German citizens by East Germany during the reigns of terror.
Please, leave Israel out of the equation. The Eichmann Trials represent the triumph of justice of sorts, a very small vindication, carried out by a poor young country facing a very hostile world. To compare that with Kashoggi’s liquidation is to belittle the Eichmann Affair.
Iran executes people for warring against God. You support a similar criminal code for Saudi Arabia?