Top Saudi official issued death threat against UN's Khashoggi investigator
A senior Saudi official issued what was perceived to be a death threat against the independent United Nations investigator, Agnès Callamard, after her investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In an interview with the Guardian, the outgoing special
rapporteur for extrajudicial killings said that a UN colleague alerted her in
January 2020 that a senior Saudi official had twice threatened in a meeting
with other senior UN officials in Geneva that month to have Callamard “taken
care of” if she was not reined in by the UN.
Asked how the comment was perceived by her Geneva-based
colleagues, Callamard said: “A death threat. That was how it was understood.”
Callamard, a French national and human rights expert who
will this month take on her new post as secretary general of Amnesty
International, was the first official to publicly investigate and publish a
detailed report into the 2018 murder of Khashoggi, a prominent former insider
who used his column at the Washington Post to write critically about the Saudi
government.
Callamard’s 100-page report, published in June 2019,
concluded that there was “credible evidence” that the Saudi crown prince,
Mohammed bin Salman, and other senior Saudi officials were liable for the
killing, and called the murder an “international crime”. The Biden
administration has since released its own unclassified report, which concluded
that Prince Mohammed had approved the murder. The Saudi government has denied
the killing, which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, was ordered by
the future king.
The alleged threats were made, she said, at a “high-level”
meeting between Geneva-based Saudi diplomats, visiting Saudi officials and UN
officials in Geneva. During the exchange, Callamard was told, they criticised
her work on the Khashoggi murder, registering their anger about her investigation
and her conclusions. The Saudi officials also raised baseless allegations that
she had received money from Qatar – a frequent refrain against critics of the
Saudi government.
Callamard said one of the visiting senior Saudi officials is
then alleged to have said that he had received phone calls from individuals who
were prepared to “take care of her”.
When UN officials expressed alarm, other Saudis who were
present sought to reassure them that the comment ought not to be taken
seriously. The Saudi group then left the room but, Callamard was told, the
visiting senior Saudi official stayed behind, and repeated the alleged threat
to the remaining UN officials in the room.
Specifically, the visiting Saudi official said he knew
people who had offered to “take care of the issue if you don’t”.
“It was reported to me at the time and it was one occasion
where the United Nations was actually very strong on that issue. People that
were present, and also subsequently, made it clear to the Saudi delegation that
this was absolutely inappropriate and that there was an expectation that this
should not go further,” Callamard said.
While Callamard has in the past discussed the threats she
has faced in her work as a special rapporteur, including by the Philippine
president, Rodrigo Duterte, details of the alleged Saudi threat are being
revealed in the Guardian for the first time.
The development will probably bolster the view of human
rights experts that Saudi Arabia’s government has acted with impunity in the
wake of Khashoggi’s 2018 murder, including through arbitrary arrests of critics
of the prince, as well as his potential political rivals.
The Saudi government did not respond to emailed requests for
comment, which the Guardian sent to the Saudi foreign ministry, the Saudi
embassy in London and the Saudi embassy in Washington.
“You know, those threats don’t work on me. Well, I don’t
want to call for more threats. But I have to do what I have to do. It didn’t
stop me from acting in a way which I think is the right thing to do,” Callamard
said.
Comments
Post a Comment