Judd Legum: The Murder Business

https://popular.info/p/the-murder-business

"I'm very troubled by the reports to date about Jamal Khashoggi. We are following the situation closely, and unless a substantially different set of facts emerges, I won't be attending the FII conference in Riyadh."

Those were the words of Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi on October 12, 2018, explaining his decision not to attend Saudi Arabia's FII investment conference.

On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post who was critical of the Saudi regime, was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Khashoggi was at the consulate to obtain papers for an upcoming wedding. While there, he was forcibly restrained and injected with a fatal dose of a drug. Following his death, Khashoggi's body was dismembered with a bone saw.

At the time of Khosrowshahi's initial statement, there was no official determination about who was responsible for Khashoggi's murder. Since then, an intelligence assessment has been released by the United States, which determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) personally approved the operation:

We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince [Mohammad] bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decision-making in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of [Mohammad] bin Salman’s protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi.

MBS has denied any involvement, but the evidence against him is overwhelming.

*snip*