Jamal Khashoggi

Jamal Khashoggi (born October 13, 1958, Medina, Saudi Arabia—died October 2, 2018, Istanbul, Turkey [Türkiye]) was a prominent Saudi journalist and critic of Mohammed bin Salman, who became Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler in 2017. About the same time Khashoggi moved to the United States and as an independent writer contributed columns to The Washington Post, for which he wrote more than a dozen articles criticizing the crown prince. On October 2, 2018, after Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain legal documents, he was killed and dismembered.

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Life and career

Khashoggi was born into a prominent Saudi family whose paternal line migrated from Turkey (Türkiye) during the Ottoman period. His grandfather Muhammad served as the personal physician of Abdulaziz ibn Saud, the founder of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. His uncle, Adnan, was a wealthy businessman and arms dealer known for his strong political ties to the West. His aunt, Samira, was the mother of Dodi Fayed, an Egyptian filmmaker who was killed alongside Diana, princess of Wales, in a car crash in 1997. His father, Ahmad, and his mother, Esaaf (née Daftar), were not much in the public eye.

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In the late 1970s Khashoggi went to the United States to study business administration, and in 1983 he received a bachelor’s degree from Indiana State University. He afterward embarked on a career in journalism, first with Saudi Gazette, based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and afterward with Asharq Al-Awsat, based in London. Throughout his career he worked for several newspapers and television networks, in both English- and Arabic-language media.

Early in his career he covered the Afghan War (1978–92), in which a large number of Muslim volunteers from across the world (dubbed “Afghan-Arabs”) joined the Afghan mujahideen in their fight against the Soviets. During that time he was in close contact with Osama bin Laden, an Afghan-Arab from another prominent Saudi family who was organizing and financing a network of Afghan-Arab fighters. The network, called al-Qaeda, later directed its attention toward the United States after Saudi Arabia allowed U.S. troops in the country in the lead-up to the Persian Gulf War. After bin Laden went into exile in Sudan, al-Qaeda began committing acts of terrorism against the United States and its assets abroad. Khashoggi last met with bin Laden in 1995 and attempted, on behalf of the bin Laden family, to persuade bin Laden to renounce violence. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Khashoggi publicly condemned bin Laden. He also became critical of Islamic fundamentalism—at a time when Saudi Arabia was trying to distance its puritanical brand of Islam from jihadism—and wrote in 2002 that “Osama bin Laden’s hijacked planes not only attacked New York and Washington, they also attacked Islam as a faith and the values of tolerance and coexistence that it preaches.” In 2003, as editor in chief, he allowed Alwatan newspaper to publish an article critical of Ibn Taymiyyah, a 13th-century religious scholar whose works became foundational for the strict interpretation of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia (see Wahhābī). He was soon afterward fired.

Khashoggi then worked closely with Turki al-Faisal, a Saudi ambassador and former intelligence director and a senior member of the royal family, as his media adviser. He was stationed first in London and later in Washington, D.C., and during that time he purchased a house in McLean, Virginia. After Turki’s retirement from public life in 2007, Khashoggi returned to Alwatan in Saudi Arabia as the newspaper’s editor in chief. Although he held the position for three years, he continued to run into trouble for allowing articles critical of Saudi Arabia’s religious institutions, and he resigned in 2010. A television station he helped launch in 2015 under the patronage of al-Waleed bin Talal, Saudi Arabia’s leading media mogul, was shut down only hours after it was launched. The station, which was headquartered in neighboring Bahrain, had broadcast an interview with a Bahraini opposition figure earlier in the day.

Just days earlier, King Abdullah had died, and his half-brother Salman succeeded him as king, reshuffling the government and marking a new era in Saudi policy. Salman’s son Mohammed bin Salman quickly took on an influential role in his aging father’s government, and in June 2017 he was named crown prince. That same month Khashoggi, banned from journalism in Saudi Arabia for his criticism of President-elect Donald Trump in 2016, moved back to his home in McLean.

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Amid his rise as Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed was responsible for a number of audacious policies, including an aggressive military intervention in Yemen’s civil war and launching the development of a megacity called Neom. Although he relaxed social restrictions in the very conservative country, he left little room for dissent or opposition as he shored up power. In September 2017 Saudi authorities arrested dozens of clerics, academics, and media figures that it accused of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a largely nonviolent Islamist organization that was banned in the kingdom in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings. Khashoggi, posting on Twitter (now X) from the United States, criticized the authorities for labeling “anyone who believes in reform” and is “proud of their religion” as members of the Muslim Brotherhood. That same month he began contributing to The Washington Post, asserting in his opening column that Mohammed’s reform agenda would be “best served by encouraging constructive, diverse opinions from public figures such as…[those] who have instead been swept up in these arrests.” In November dozens of Saudi princes, business leaders, and senior officials were arrested, including Khashoggi’s former boss al-Waleed.

Over the next year, Khashoggi’s contributions to The Washington Post took clear and targeted aim at the crown prince and his policies. The headlines frequently referred to him directly: “Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is acting like Putin”; “Saudi Arabia’s women can finally drive. But the crown prince needs to do much more.”; and “By blaming 1979 for Saudi Arabia’s problems, the crown prince is peddling revisionist history.” Yet Khashoggi’s columns also showed a clear alignment with Mohammed’s goals for Saudi Arabia. He conceded that Mohammed was advancing social freedoms, he wrote favorably about Mohammed’s ambitious Vision 2030 economic program, and he applauded Mohammed’s aim to end financial corruption. Instead of calling for Mohammed to step down, Khashoggi appealed for change in direction, especially on matters of press freedom and the free exchange of ideas. Months after the shakedown in November, he wrote, “For the first time in modern history, royals are being treated like ordinary citizens. But what about the several dozen intellectuals, religious scholars and journalists who, with far less international attention, have been awaiting trial?…If [Mohammed bin Salman] can listen to his critics and acknowledge that they, too, love their country, he can actually enhance his power.” Distancing himself from opponents of the royal family, he complained, “Writers like me, whose criticism is offered respectfully, seem to be considered more dangerous than the more strident Saudi opposition based in London.”

Death

The frequent agitation from abroad was not well received. In May 2018 Khashoggi met Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish citizen, at a conference in Istanbul. They decided to marry soon afterward—a quick timeline that is not unusual in Middle Eastern cultures. In September he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul for paperwork that would allow him to marry Cengiz but was told to return at a later date. When he returned on October 2, Khashoggi entered the consulate about 1:15 pm as Cengiz waited outside. He never came out. After several hours had passed, she was told by consulate staff that he had exited through the back. After waiting a bit longer, she contacted the Turkish police, who began investigating the situation. She continued to wait until after midnight and then returned the following morning.

Although Saudi officials insisted that Khashoggi had left the consulate and that they would cooperate with the Turkish investigation into his disappearance, Turkish officials pressed, saying that Khashoggi was still inside the consulate. On October 5 The Washington Post ran a blank column in its print edition to highlight that Khashoggi was missing. The next day the media reported that the Turkish government was working on the assumption that Khashoggi had been killed inside the consulate. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, demanded Saudi Arabia provide proof that he had left the consulate. On October 9 Turkish authorities revealed their conclusion that Khashoggi had been killed and dismembered by about 15 agents who were associated with the Saudi security establishment. The evidence collected included audio, recorded by a bug inside the consulate, that captured the activity in the room as Khashoggi was dismembered. The authorities also concluded that the killing had been ordered by senior officials of the Saudi government, and the CIA assessed a month later with high confidence that the killing had been ordered by Mohammed bin Salman.

The diplomatic fallout spurred King Salman to intervene, temporarily sidelining Mohammed in public life and communicating directly with Erdoğan and U.S. President Trump about the crisis. Mohammed later took responsibility for Khashoggi’s death, telling Frontline that “it happened under my watch” but that he did not know about the killing ahead of time. Saudi Arabia conducted an investigation and in 2019 tried 11 suspects, 5 of whom were sentenced to death and 3 others were sentenced to prison terms. The death sentences were later reduced to prison sentences. Turkey initially pursued a trial under Turkish law for 26 suspects, but in 2022 it referred the case to Saudi Arabia. No high-ranking Saudi officials are known to have been held accountable.