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WaPo Columnist Jamal Khashoggi killed by Saudis in Turkey; Senators Mull Magnitsky Sanctions
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Did the U.S. Fail Its “Duty to Warn” Jamal Khashoggi? How U.S. Directive 191 Applies to Kidnapping Threats
The question of whether the United States is failing to respond adequately to foreign governments’ attempted kidnapping or assassination of political opponents, dissidents and journalists—even when it takes place on the soil of NATO allies—is raising concerns for many.
How President Donald Trump and the U.S. government as a whole have responded to such actions is further complicated by whether the U.S. and its intelligence community have advance knowledge of such an attack. That’s because there is an internal government order in place requiring U.S. intelligence agencies to warn an intended victim if the agency acquires information that a threat of kidnapping, murder, or serious bodily injury is imminent.
This question is already being raised with respect to the fate of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared a little over a week ago after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish authorities have said they believe Khashoggi was murdered inside the consulate and have provided what they believe is evidence of the plan to reporters. The Saudi government has denied all allegations.
“Although I cannot comment on intelligence matters, I can say definitively the United States had no advance knowledge of Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance,” State Department Deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said Wednesday afternoon. He repeated almost those exact same words again later in the press briefing. Asked whether the United States had “any advance knowledge that there might be some kind of threat to him should he go into the consulate in Istanbul,” Palladino replied. “We had no advanced knowledge.”
But on Tuesday night, the Washington Post reported that U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted communications that indicated a Saudi plan to capture Khashoggi may have been in the works:
“Before Khashoggi’s disappearance, U.S. intelligence intercepted communications of Saudi officials discussing a plan to capture him, according to a person familiar with the information. The Saudis wanted to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and lay hands on him there, this person said. It was not clear whether the Saudis intended to arrest and interrogate Khashoggi or to kill him, or if the United States warned Khashoggi that he was a target, this person said.”
(The Post then updated its report to refer to two unnamed sources rather than one.) ABC’s Conor Finnegan noted a potential difference in what the Post reported (information about a plan to capture Khashoggi) and what the Palladino denied (information about a plan to disappear Khashoggi).
If any U.S. agencies did have foreknowledge of a potential Saudi plan to kidnap, kill, or maim Khashoggi, they had an obligation to warn him.
Intelligence Community Directive 191—titled “Duty to Warn”—obligates U.S. intelligence agencies to inform the victim of a potential kidnapping or murder if the U.S. agency becomes aware of such a threat in the course of collecting or acquiring intelligence. The directive allows for a waiver in very limited circumstances. If no waiver applies, the directive stipulates that close cases “should be resolved in favor of informing the intended victim.”
On Wednesday night, the Washington Post reported new information about the Saudi plans that were intercepted by U.S. intelligence. The plan appeared to involve luring Khashoggi and then detaining him in Saudi Arabia. The Post is careful to note that Palladino’s statement does not address this plan. “Administration officials have not commented on the intelligence reports that showed a Saudi plan to lure Khashoggi,” the Post states.
What is further interesting is that the Post quotes an unnamed former senior intelligence official who suggests this plan might not have triggered the Directive 191 obligations. “Capturing him, which could have been interpreted as arresting him, would not have triggered a duty-to-warn obligation,” the former official said. “If something in the reported intercept indicated that violence was planned, then, yes, he should have been warned.” That’s not completely accurate in my opinion. Kidnapping alone, without any anticipate serious bodily harm, triggers the Directive’s duty to warn. A plan to lure and render Khashoggi against his will (i.e., forcibly transfer him) to Saudi Arabia looks like a case of kidnapping. If US intelligence agencies knew about it in advance, they had a duty to warn him.
Some have speculated about the possibility that the U.S. intercepted the information before Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate on Oct. 2, but only assessed that information afterwards, for example, once it became clear that something nefarious may have occurred. In other words, perhaps the U.S. government uncovered information about Saudi plans to kidnap Khashoggi but only following a post-incident query of prior signals intelligence. But that is not how Washington Post reportersappear to be describing the situation. And the latest Washington Post report on Wednesday evening strongly suggests the information was known well in advance: “The intelligence had been disseminated throughout the U.S. government and contained in reports that are routinely available to people working on U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia or related issues, one U.S. official said.”
If the U.S. had known of a threat to kidnap, kill, or maim Khashoggi beforehand, the one waiver provision that might apply is if “any attempt” to warn him would “undulyendanger” sources, methods, or intelligence operations. But “any” attempt sounds limited in scope, and the directive explicitly encourages U.S. agencies to think innovatively of ways to warn an intended victim and minimize such concerns. The directive states, for example, “Communication of threat information to the intended victim may be delivered anonymously if that is the only method available to ensure protection of U.S. government personnel, sources, methods, intelligence operations, or defense operations.”
There is one other waiver provision that provides an exemption to the duty to warn if “the intended victim, or those responsible for ensuring the intended victim’s safety, is already aware of the specific threat.” There’s some indication that Khashoggi had knowledge of other attempts by the Saudis. But that does not appear to be anything close to knowledge of the specific threat envisioned by the waiver. Otherwise Khashoggi would not have entered the consulate as he did.
The less than forceful signals sent by President Trump in response to Khashoggi’s disappearance is accentuating a climate of fear among those who could also be targeted by the Saudis or other regimes willing to engage in similar methods. Khashoggi is a rare individual who became a U.S. resident and connected in his professional network to powerful institutions such as the Washington Post. If this could happen to someone like him, what does it mean for others?
“My family used to feel that I am safe when I am outside Yemen, but after the alleged kidnapping and murder of Khashoggi, they said to me that they now worried that the whole world has become unsafe for me,” said Radhya Almutawakel, director of the Mwatana Organization for Human Rights in Yemen, where she has led work investigating and advocating against Saudi abuses.
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Screenshots show Khashoggi did not see text messages after entering Saudi consulate
WASHINGTON — Missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi checked his cellphone just before entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week, but never read messages sent to him minutes later, screenshots obtained by NBC News show.
The screenshots of WhatsApp messages sent to Khashoggi by a friend in the U.S. corroborate the timeline of his disappearance, providing further evidence that he did not leave the consulate, as Saudi Arabia's government has claimed.
Khashoggi's fiancé, Hatice Cengiz, has said he left a cellphone with her before entering the consulate. It's unclear whether that's the same cellphone to which the unread messages were sent. Reports in foreign news outlets have said Khashoggi left one cellphone with his fiancé but carried another into the consulate, and a person close to Khashoggi's family told NBC News that was indeed a possibility.
Either way, the unread messages indicate that after entering the consulate, Khashoggi never regained access to the cellphone that he used regularly to communicate with friends and others in the U.S. The Virginia phone number is the same one that NBC News had used in the past to arrange interviews with Khashoggi.
Two WhatsApp screenshots obtained by NBC News from a friend of Jamal Khashoggi in the Pacific Time Zone of the U.S. show Khashoggi was "last seen" on WhatsApp at 3:06 a.m. Pacific (1:06 p.m. Istanbul). At left, a text sent by the friend on Monday, Oct. 1, 2018 to Khashoggi at 12:25 p.m. Pacific (10:25 p.m. Istanbul) was read (two blue checks). At right, a text sent by the friend on Tuesday, Oct. 2 to Khashoggi at 3:24 a.m. Pacific (1:24 p.m. Istanbul) was delivered, but never read (two gray checks).NBC News
The WhatsApp messages consist of links to news articles sent by the friend to Khashoggi about Saudi Arabia, including some critical of the government led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. One was a link to a piece in the magazine The American Conservative entitled "The Increasingly Repressive 'New' Saudi Arabia."
Screenshots from the sender's phone show that a message sent to Khashoggi the night before, at 10:25 p.m. Istanbul-time on Oct. 1, was read. WhatsApp uses two blue check marks to indicate messages that have been seen by the recipient.
Later messages sent to Khashoggi show that he was "last seen" on WhatsApp on Oct. 2 at 1:06 p.m. Istanbul-time. The "last seen" feature reveals when a WhatsApp user was last online and using the encrypted messaging application.
Eight minutes later, Khashoggi entered the consulate in Istanbul at 1:14 p.m., according to the timestamp on CCTV footage that shows him walking into the building.
A message sent to him at 1:24 p.m. was delivered to his phone but was never read, indicated by two gray check marks next to the message.
The friend who sent Khashoggi the text messages was in the Western part of the U.S., so the time stamps on the screenshots are in Pacific Daylight Time — 10 hours behind Istanbul. The sender agreed to share the information on condition of anonymity out of concern for the sender's safety.
The new details about Khashoggi's text messages come amid a swirl of new, macabre reports and conflicting information about what happened to Khashoggi, complicating global efforts to determine his whereabouts and whether he's still alive.
Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and critic of the government who wrote in The Washington Post, entered the consulate last Tuesday to obtain documents needed for his upcoming marriage to Cengiz, a Turkish citizen. Saudi Arabia has maintained that he left the consulate, but has not provided any proof.
Late Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Crown Prince Mohammed had ordered an operation to lure Kashoggi to Saudi Arabia from Virginia, where he resides, citing "U.S. intelligence intercepts of Saudi officials discussing the plan." But the officials weren't clear whether the Saudis discussed harming Khashoggi or merely detaining him, the report said. NBC News has not had access to the intercepts.
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. told Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., that consulate security cameras that would have captured his departure were not recording. But an individual familiar with Saudi embassy operations and protocol says that claim "raises questions."
"The Saudis take security at diplomatic posts very seriously, especially in a complex security environment like Istanbul," the individual said. "If the cameras were not working, it could have been a violation of security protocol."
Over the weekend Turkish authorities told NBC News and other news organizations that police believed Khashoggi had been killed inside the consulate. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said it's Saudi Arabia's responsibility to prove that he truly left the consulate.
On Wednesday, three people familiar with the investigation told NBC News that Turkish officials had told the U.S. that Turkey had listening devices inside the Saudi consulate, giving the Turks at least some insight into what transpired inside.
Jamal Khashoggi speaks at an event in London on Sept. 29.Middle East Monitor / Reuters
The case has drawn increasing concern from leaders in the U.S., including President Donald Trump, who is pledging to "get to the bottom" of his disappearance. John Bolton, the national security adviser, and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner spoke this week to Crown Prince Mohammed seeking information about Khashoggi, the White House said, as did Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
"It's a very bad situation," Trump said. "And we want to get to the bottom of it."
Corker and other senators on the Foreign Relations panel sent Trump a letter Wednesday giving the president three months to determine whether Saudi Arabia violated the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which prohibits extrajudicial killings, torture and other egregious rights violations. A determination that Saudi Arabia did violate the act would trigger sanctions on Saudi Arabia unless Trump specifically waives them.
Corker and some other senators have been given access to a classified intelligence report regarding Khashoggi's case. After reading the report, Corker said he couldn't divulge its details, but told NBC News there was "no question" that it confirmed his skepticism about Saudi Arabia's explanations.
Khashoggi's disappearance has brought renewed scrutiny to the Saudi government's increasingly aggressive efforts to silence its critics. Trump and other Western leaders have praised Crown Prince Mohammed for pursuing ambitious reforms aimed at modernizing the country and its economy, but there have been growing concerns about other freedoms for Saudis violated in the process.
thernbroom
Superstar
You not “thatknickfan” anymore?
thatrapsfan
Superstar
I gave up and went back to my Canadian rootsYou not “thatknickfan” anymore?
Smoking With Cigarettes
Superstar
Hes predicting the eventual spin by Trump, but forgot to take a sideswipe at the DemsYou are being sarcastic right
Json
Superstar
Yeah. I know Trump and Bolton got a hard-on to blame those two for everything.You are being sarcastic right
Slim
Superstar
Come back breh!I gave up and went back to my Canadian roots
Going to be interesting to see how Turkey leverages this. That video they have gotta be worth billions.