WASHINGTON – Seven Saudis who were involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi were part of an elite unit tasked with protecting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This emerges from a released report on the attack published on Friday. The New York Times has linked the group with a brutal campaign to suppress disagreements at home and abroad, citing interviews with American officials who read intelligence reports on the campaign.
The role of activists from the so-called Rapid Intervention Force (RIF) in the assassination of Khashoggi helped bolster the case by American intelligence that Prince Mohammed approved the operation. “Members of the RIF would not have participated in the murder without the consent of the Crown Prince,” the report said.
The group “exists to defend the Crown Prince” and “only responds to him,” the report said, and on Friday the Treasury Department appointed the Rapid Intervention Force for economic sanctions for its role in the Khashoggi assassination.
Here’s something about what is known about the device:
Operations
The assassination of Mr Khashoggi was just one particularly monstrous operation that included members of the group. The Rapid Intervention Force appears to have begun its violent campaign in 2017, the year Prince Mohammed pushed his elder rival aside to become heir to the Saudi throne.
According to American officials, the group has carried out dozens of operations both inside and outside the kingdom – including the forcible repatriation of Saudis from other Arab countries. The group also appears to have been involved in the detention and abuse of prominent women rights activists who campaigned for the kingdom’s driving ban on women to be lifted. One of them, Loujain al-Hathloul, was arrested in 2018 and only released this month.
Another of the women arrested by the group, a university professor, attempted suicide after being subjected to American torture in 2018 after being subjected to psychological torture. Some of the inmates were temporarily held in an opulent palace owned by Prince Mohammed and his father, King Salman.
The group was so busy that in June 2018 their field commander asked an advisor to Prince Mohammed whether the Rapid Intervention Force could receive rewards for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, according to American officials Read the intelligence report mentioning the request.
Leadership and employees
The group was overseen by Saud al-Qahtani, one of the Crown Prince’s best aides, who served as media tsar for the royal court. One of Mr. al-Qahtani’s jobs was to manage the kingdom’s “troll farms” – organizations that used legions of online bots and avatars to stifle the voices of prominent critics like Mr. Khashoggi. The intelligence report released on Friday referred to a quote from Mr. al-Qahtani in 2018 that he “did not make any decisions without the consent of the Crown Prince”.
American officials said the Rapid Intervention Force field commander was Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, an intelligence officer who often traveled overseas with Prince Mohammed. Another member of the team, Thaar Ghaleb al-Harbi, was a member of the Saudi Royal Guard, who was promoted for valor in an attack on one of Prince Mohammed’s palaces in 2017.
In the released report on Friday, all three men were named as part of a group of 21 people who “participated in, ordered, or otherwise complicit in, or were responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi on behalf of the Crown Prince.”
The process
The Saudi government has long denied that Prince Mohammed played a role in the assassination of Mr Khashoggi and has brought eight men to justice. The government never published the names of the defendants.
In September, a Saudi court announced that five of the men had been sentenced to 20 years in prison and three others had fewer sentences. Some of the accused had originally received death sentences, but those were overturned after one of Mr Khashoggi’s sons said publicly that he and his siblings pardoned the men who killed their father.
It was unclear whether members of the Rapid Intervention Force were tried or convicted, but Mr al-Qahtani was publicly exonerated by the Saudi government because prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to back him up in the murder of Mr Khashoggi Court.
