Saudi Arabian Killers Of Washington Post Journalist Khashoggi Trained By U.S. Military
Four Saudi Arabian assassins who participated in the 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi received paramilitary training in the U.S. the previous year, according to a New York Times report.
A U.S.-based journalist, Khashoggi was a critic of Saudi
Arabia’s government.
The training his assassins received in the U.S. was
defensive in nature and devised to protect Saudi leaders, the Times reported.
It was provided by the Arkansas-based security company Tier 1 Group, which is
owned by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management.
Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on
Oct. 2, 2019 to get paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancée and disappeared. His
grisly murder shocked the world and highlighted the repressive nature of the
Saudi regime.
Saudi officials said the Khashoggi was killed in a “rogue
operation” by a team of agents sent to persuade him to return to the kingdom,
BBC reported. Turkish officials had a different story, saying the agents acted
on orders from the highest levels of the Saudi government.
There is no evidence that the U.S. officials who approved
the training or Tier 1 Group executives knew that the Saudis were involved in
the crackdown inside Saudi Arabia, sources who spoke to the Times said.
The license granted to train Saudis was issued under former
U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration in 2014. Training continued at
least until the first year of President Donald Trump’s term.
Khashoggi, a native Saudi Arabia, had relocated to the U.S.
in 2017 and began working for The Washington Post. His work included analyzing
the situation in Saudi Arabia and the country’s foreign policy.
A recent Yahoo News report by investigative journalist
Michael Isikoff also revealed that the team of Saudi assassins who allegedly
killed Khashoggi reportedly stopped in the Egyptian capital to pick up the
drugs they used in the murder. Khashoggi was considered a Saudi dissident.
In response to the Times report, State Department spokesman
Ned Price said under the law the department cannot comment “on any of the
licensed defence export licensing activity alleged in media reporting.”
A U.S. intelligence report in February said the Saudi crown
prince had approved an operation to capture or kill the journalist.
A report released in June 2019 by Agnes Callamard, the
special rapporteur, concluded that Khashoggi’s death “constituted an
extrajudicial killing for which the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is
responsible”.
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