A scene from the documentary’Dissidents’, featuring the appearances of the Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Binsalman (left) and Jamal Kashqji (right). AP material photo
In the 2018 journalist Jamal Kashqji’s murder, a new situation was revealed that Saudi Arabia’s influential Crown Prince Muhammad Binsalman was involved, the US CNN reported on the 24th (local time).
The broadcast made the same announcement based on a document of an embezzlement lawsuit filed by Saudi state-owned companies last month against a former Saudi intelligence official and now a Canadian citizen, Saad Al-Jabri.
Kashukji is a dissident who criticized the Saudi royal family as a columnist for the Washington Post in the US daily newspaper. He was brutally murdered while visiting the Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul, Turkey in October 2018 at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, and no body was finally found.
Thirteen of the 15 assassins who killed Kashqji at the time quickly escaped Istanbul using two HZ-SK1 and HZ-SK2 aircraft belonging to the Spy Prime Airlines, which traveled between Istanbul and Saudi Arabia immediately after the crime. This lawsuit document reveals the transfer of ownership of the airline to the sovereign wealth fund chaired by Crown Prince Muhammad in December 2017. “The fact that Sky Prime’s planes were used to assassinate Kashukji provides another link between the killing of Kashukji and Prince Muhammad,” CNN said.
Suspicions have been raised that he is behind Crown Prince Muhammad, but the Saudi government has denied it. Last year, a Saudi court sentenced five defendants accused of killing Kashqji to 20 years in prison. While the two years of judicial proceedings in the assassination case were virtually finalized, the suspicion of the involvement of Prince Muhammad, who was pointed out as the body, was criticized for being’cutting the tail’.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government is expected to declassify and disclose the Kashukji report prepared by the National Intelligence Service (DNI) in the near future, and it is noteworthy whether further suspicions surrounding the murder will be resolved. White House spokesman Jen Saki said in a press briefing today, “We are upholding our promise to release the report through the DNI. We expect (disclosure) to take place soon.”
Heo Gyeongju reporter [email protected]
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