Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Bezos backtracks on MbS-Saudi phone hacking, lawsuits incoming (Video)

alayham — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 13:05:06 +0000

Bezos backtracks on MbS-Saudi phone hacking, lawsuits incoming (Video) alayham Mon, 02/03/2020 - 14:05

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the latest twist in the Bezos-MbS-Sanchez nude selfie pics, as the Amazon CEO and WaPo owner, Jeff Bezos, has now been sued for defamation by his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez’s brother.
Lauren Sanchez’s brother has denied the giving nude photos to a tabloid publication. The Saudi MbS hack has now been debunked, and the current lawsuit now claims that Jeff Bezos has falsely named Michael Sanchez as the selfie source.

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Via Bloomberg…
Jeff Bezos was sued for defamation by his girlfriend’s brother in a lawsuit accusing the Amazon.com Inc. chief executive officer of falsely claiming the brother provided lurid photographs to the National Enquirer.
The lawsuit was filed late Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Michael Sanchez, the brother of Lauren Sanchez and subject of media reports that he was a source for the Enquirer’s splashy report last year revealing the affair between his sister and Bezos. The story has expanded into an international controversy, now involving allegations that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince participated in a hack of Bezos’ phone and an investigation by federal prosecutors in New York.
The lawsuit also names Gavin de Becker, a security consultant who works for Bezos, as a defendant. It accuses Bezos and de Becker of telling journalists that Michael Sanchez provided graphic nude photographs of the Amazon CEO to the tabloid.
In the filing, Michael Sanchez acknowledges he entered a confidential agreement to “cooperate strategically” with American Media Inc., the National Enquirer’s parent company, but said he did so to “get ahead of the story” in an effort to limit the backlash against his sister and Bezos.
He says he didn’t provide the photographs to the Enquirer and couldn’t have been the source for them because he never possessed them.
A lawyer for Bezos, William Isaacson, said Bezos would respond to the accusations in court.

‘Unforgivable Betrayal’

“Michael is my older brother,” Lauren Sanchez said in a statement provided by her lawyer, Terry Bird. “He secretly provided my most personal information to the National Enquirer — a deep and unforgivable betrayal. My family is hurting over this new baseless and untrue lawsuit, and we truly hope my brother finds peace.”
De Becker did not respond to a message seeking comment.
A United Nations report last month accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of possible complicity in the hack of Bezos’ phone, based on an analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Bezos. Saudi Arabia has denied the allegation, and the report did not link Saudi Arabia’s alleged actions to the Enquirer report.

Federal Case

At the time the Bezos story was published, AMI was already operating under a non-prosecution agreement with the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, after admitting its role in hush-money payments made to women who allegedly had affairs with President Donald Trump.
In a blog post shortly after the Enquirer’s story about the affair, Bezos accused the tabloid of extortion and blackmail in their handling of the story. That prompted prosecutors to reopen their investigation to determine if AMI had violated its non-prosecution agreement. That investigation was still ongoing as of late last year, according to people familiar with it.
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Saudi dissident prince flies home to tackle MBS succession

alayham — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 07:44:05 +0000

Saudi dissident prince flies home to tackle MBS succession alayham Thu, 11/01/2018 - 08:44

Saudi dissident prince flies home to tackle MBS succession, via The Middle East Eye…

Prince Ahmad bin Abdulaziz, the younger brother of King Salman, has returned to Saudi Arabia after a prolonged absence in London, to mount a challenge to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or find someone who can.
The septuagenarian prince, an open critic of bin Salman (MBS), has travelled with security guarantees given by US and UK officials.
“He and others in the family have realised that MBS has become toxic,” a Saudi source close to Prince Ahmad told Middle East Eye.
“The prince wants to play a role to make these changes, which means either he himself will play a major role in any new arrangement or to help to choose an alternative to MBS.”
The source said that the prince returned “after discussion with US and UK officials”, who assured him they would not let him be harmed and encouraged him to play the role of usurper.
Apart from those western guarantees, Ahmad is also protected by his rank.
Last November, bin Salman conducted a sweeping purge of dissident royals, yet was not able to touch any sons of King Abdulaziz, the founder of the modern Saudi state, who are regarded as too senior a target for him.
Disquiet grows
The 33-year-old heir to the Saudi throne’s dominance in the kingdom has come under intense scrutiny following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on 2 October, leading to speculation that he could be replaced.
MEE understands that while Prince Ahmad was in London he held meetings with other members of the Saudi royal family who are currently living outside the kingdom.
Prince Ahmad also consulted figures inside the kingdom who have similar concerns and have encouraged him to usurp his nephew.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has come under intense pressure. (Reuters)
MEE also understands there are three senior princes who support Prince Ahmad’s move, who cannot be named for fear of compromising their security. All have held top positions in the military and security forces.
Meanwhile, in Washington disquiet grows.
Writing in the New York Times, former national security advisor to the Obama administration and US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said: “Looking ahead, Washington must act to mitigate the risks to our own interests. We should not rupture our important relationship with the kingdom, but we must make clear it cannot be business as usual so long as Prince Mohammed continues to wield unlimited power.
“It should be United States policy, in conjunction with our allies, to sideline the crown prince in order to increase pressure on the royal family to find a steadier replacement,” she added.
Turkish standoff
Prince Ahmad’s return will only increase the pressure on bin Salman, who is at the centre of a standoff between Saudi Arabia and Turkey after Khashoggi was murdered in his country’s consulate in Istanbul.
The Turkish authorities are demanding the Saudis tell them where Khashoggi’s body is, and the Saudis are insisting that Turkey hand over the audio tapes of the execution, details of which have routinely been leaked to the media.
In a thinly veiled attack on the crown prince, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday accused the Saudis of protecting the person responsible for the murder.
“A game to save somebody lies beneath this,” Erdogan told reporters following a speech in parliament on Tuesday. “We won’t leave Khashoggi’s murder behind.”
The Turkish president, who outlined some of the investigation into Khashoggi’s murder in an address last week, has promised to reveal more details about the killing but has so far refrained from doing so.
Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb leaves his country’s consulate in Istanbul. (AP)
Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mujeb has met Istanbul’s chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan twice in the last two days, but no progress has been reported.
The Saudis are continuing to refuse Turkish investigators access to the well in the grounds of the consul-general’s home, which is 500 metres from the consulate.
After first denying that Khashoggi had been murdered in the consulate, the Saudis now say they have arrested 18 suspects, 15 of which were members of a death squad sent to kill the prominent critic of the crown prince.
Bin Salman has repeatedly denied knowledge of the operation, which included five members of his personal security detail, three of whom accompanied him on high-profile trips to London, Washington and Paris.
On Monday Mujeb offered Fidan the suspects’ testimony. Turkey, though, demands their extradition, so they can stand trial and give evidence to a Turkish court. Saudi Arabia is refusing this.
On record
Before the Khashoggi affair, Prince Ahmad’s opposition to his nephew was a matter of public record. He has challenged him openly on three occasions:
First, in the summer of 2017, when the king’s brother was one of three members of the Allegiance Council, a body of senior royals tasked with choosing the succession, to oppose bin Salman’s appointment as crown prince.
Prince Ahmed pointedly did not give an oath of allegiance to his nephew when he was made King Salman’s heir.
Second, when Prince Ahmad and King Salman’s brother, Abdelrahman bin Abdulaziz, died last year. Only two pictures were hung at the reception given by Prince Ahmad, that of King Abdulaziz and the current monarch. The crown prince’s portrait was notably missing.
Third, last month, when Prince Ahmad approached Yemeni and Bahraini protesters outside his London home who were calling the al-Sauds a criminal family.

The brother of Saudi Arabia's King Salman was heckled outside his residence in London.
So he confronted protesters telling them to blame King Salman and the Saudi Crown Prince instead pic.twitter.com/IzSY3tMs1Q
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 4, 2018

He told them the family as a whole does not bear responsibility for the war in Yemen, only the king and crown prince do.
“They are responsible for crimes in Yemen. Tell Mohammed bin Salman to stop the war,” Prince Ahmad was recorded as telling them in Arabic.
Fraught with risk
Prince Ahmad’s return to Riyadh is fraught with risk.
He is believed to have the support of significant figures in the family who now believe after the Khashoggi affair that the crown prince is permanently tainted in the West and toxic to the reputation of the family as a whole.
A Saudi dissident prince in Germany, Prince Khaled bin Farhan, told MEE in May that princes Ahmad and Muqrin bin Abdulaziz could both restore the reputation of the family, which has been destroyed by King Salman’s “irrational, erratic and stupid” rule.
“There is so much anger within the royal family,” Prince Khaled said. “I took this information and appealed to my uncles Ahmad and Muqrin, who are the sons of Abdulaziz and are highly educated, well versed and able to change things for the better. I can say that we are all behind them and support them.”
Prince Farhan speaking to Middle East Eye in May. (MEE)
Among other Saudi exiles in London and Istanbul opinions differ. Some call Prince Ahmad too weak a figure to wrought change in the kingdom.
Others say that he has personal motives for wanting to see the back of bin Salman, having been passed over for the position of crown prince himself.
The key question is whether he will be able to perform the same role as King Faisal, who ousted his brother Saoud in the only previous family coup in 1964.
If all fails, however, Prince Ahmad could find himself fitting another historic parallel: Ahmed Shafik’s attempt to oust Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in March’s election.
Shafik, seen as Sisi’s most serious challenger, was encouraged to return to Egypt after a period of exile in Dubai.
Yet on his return he was disowned by fellow generals in the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and forced to abandon the presidential challenge.
Significantly Sisi did not attend the latest investment conference in Riyadh, the so-called “Davos in the Desert”, despite an invitation by MBS to do so.

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Saudi Crown Prince Spoke To Khashoggi By Phone Moments Before He Was Killed: Report

alayham — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 12:50:00 +0000

Saudi Crown Prince Spoke To Khashoggi By Phone Moments Before He Was Killed: Report alayham Mon, 10/22/2018 - 14:50

Via Zerohedge…

In the latest bombshell report involving the Khashoggi murder, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly spoke on the phone with journalist Jamal Khashoggi moments before he was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish pro-government daily Yeni Safak disclosed the new alleged details of the case in a report on Sunday, contradicting claims by Saudi authorities that Prince Mohammed played no part in Khashoggi’s murder.
“Khashoggi was detained by the Saudi team inside the consulate building. Then Prince Mohammed contacted Khashoggi by phone and tried to convince him to return to Riyadh,” the report said.
“Khashoggi refused Prince Mohammed’s offer out of fear he would be arrested and killed if he returned. The assassination team then killed Khashoggi after the conversation ended,” it added.
While the report is so far unconfirmed, the New Arab reports that so far Turkish pro-government media have been receiving a steady stream of leaks many of which turned out to be accurate, including pictures of the hit team as they entered Turkey and reports of audio recordings of the murder said to be in the possession of Turkish authorities.
Meanwhile, the Saudi version of events has been changing significantly over the past two weeks with authorities conceded Saturday that Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and a Riyadh critic, was killed inside the kingdom’s Istanbul diplomatic compound following a “brawl”. The admission came after a fortnight of denials with the insistence that the journalist left the consulate alive, starting on October 5, when Crown Prince MBS told Bloomberg that Khashoggi was not inside the consulate and “we are ready to welcome the Turkish government to go and search our premises”.
On Saturday, the kingdom announced it had fired five top officials and arrested 18 others in an investigation into the killing – a move that has widely been viewed as an attempt to cover up the crown prince’s role in the murder.
The shifting Saudi narrative of the killing has been met with scepticism and condemnation from the international community, and has left the U.S. and other allies struggling for a response on Sunday. As Bloomberg reports, France demanded more information, Germany put arms sales to Riyadh on hold and the Trump administration stressed the vital importance of the kingdom and its economy to the U.S.

In Sunday radio and TV interviews, Dominic Raab, the U.K. politician in charge of negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union, described the latest Saudi account as not credible; French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called for “the truth’’; and Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his government would approve no arms sales so long as the investigation was ongoing.

Earlier on Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir acknowledged a cover-up attempt. The dramatic reversal, after Saudi officials had previously said the columnist left the building alive, has only complicated the issue for allies.
Saudi Arabia’s al-Jubeir told Fox News on Sunday that the journalist’s death was an “aberration.”
“There obviously was a tremendous mistake made and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to cover up,” he said, promising that “those responsible will be punished for it.”
More importantly, he said that Prince Mohammed had no knowledge of the events, although if the Turkish report is confirmed, it will be yet another major flaw with the official narrative.
Several senior members of US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party said they believed Prince Mohammed was linked to the killing, and one called for a “collective” Western response if a link is proved. In an interview with The Washington Post, President Trump, too, said the Saudi narrative had been marked by “deception and lies.’’ Yet he also defended Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a “strong person,’’ and said there was no proof of his involvement in Khashoggi’s death. Some members of Congress have questioned his willingness to exonerate the prince.
“Obviously there’s been deception and there’s been lies,” Trump said on the shifting accounts offered by Riyadh.
On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to disclose details about the case at a meeting of his AK Party’s parliamentary faction on Tuesday, Haberturk newspaper reported.
Meanwhile, as Western firms and high-ranked officials scramble to avoid any Saudi involvement, Russia is more than happy to step in and fill the power vacuum void left by the US. As a result, Russian businesses are flocking to attend the investment forum in Saudi Arabia, as Western counterparts pull out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has had considerable success boosting Moscow’s influence in the Middle East at U.S. expense, by standing by regimes that fall afoul of the West, including in Syria and Iran. Last week Putin signed a strategic and partnership agreement with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, backed by $25 billion in loans to build nuclear reactors. Until El-Sisi came to power, Egypt had been closely allied to the U.S.

Meanwhile, all eyes are fixed squarely on the Crown Prince whose position of power is looking increasingly perilous. Congressional leaders on Sunday dismissed the story proffered earlier by the Saudis, with Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bob Corker of Tennessee saying they believed the crown prince was likely involved in Khashoggi’s death.

Lawmakers said they believe the U.S. must impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia or take other action if the crown prince is shown to have been involved. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, said the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. should be formally expelled until a third-party investigation is done. He said the U.S. should call on its allies to do the same.
“Unless the Saudi kingdom understands that civilized countries around the world are going to reject this conduct and make sure that they pay a price for it, they’ll continue doing it,”’ Durbin said.

The obvious question is what happens and how the Saudi royal family will respond if it is pushed too far, and whether the worst case scenario, a sharp cut in oil exports, could be on the table if MBS feels like he has little to lose from escalating the situation beyond a point of no return.
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Saudi Arabia trying to squirm free of Khashoggi murder (Video)

alayham — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 08:43:34 +0000

Saudi Arabia trying to squirm free of Khashoggi murder (Video) alayham Wed, 10/17/2018 - 10:43

RT CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle and The Duran’s Alex Christoforou take a quick look at Saudi Arabia’s possible admission to killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi…accidentally, while they were torturing the man inside the consulate in Istanbul.
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Via Zerohedge…

Even before the publication of last night’s Saudi trial balloon hinting that the kingdom would soon acknowledge that the extrajudicial killing of Jamal Khashoggi – the insider-turned dissident journalist who walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week and never walked back out – was the result of a “botched” kidnapping attempt carried out by “rogue killers” (despite reports that the US intelligence community knew that Khashoggi was being “targeted”), two realities had become increasingly clear. One: That the Saudis would avoid responsibility for the killing by pinning it on some unfortunate underling, and two: that there would be few, if any, lasting diplomatic repercussions.
And as more media organizations confirmed reports about Saudi’s plans to spin Khashoggi’s murder as a botched interrogation (we can only imagine what was said in that room to justify the use of such extreme violence), CNN calculated the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Saudi King Salman in Riyadh for approximately 15 minutes early Tuesday, following his 12-hour-plus flight to the kingdom.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s meeting with King Salman of Saudi Arabia lasted no more than 15 minutes, CNN estimates based on the time the top US diplomat’s motorcade arrived at the royal court and departed.
The motorcade arrived at the royal court at 11:42 a.m. (4:42 a.m. ET) and left 26 minutes later. There is a fair distance to walk from where the motorcade dropped Pompeo off to where he met the king.
While Trump said on Monday that Pompeo would travel to Turkey “if necessary”, the Saudi’s decision to “come clean” about Khashoggi’s death pretty much rendered Pompeo’s fact-finding mission unnecessary.More important are developments in Turkey, where the joint Saudi-Turkish “investigation” is turning its attention toward the home of the Saudi consul, where a black diplomatic van that departed the Saudi consulate just under two hours after Khashoggi entered was captured on camera disappearing into a garage. Some speculate that this is where the killers finished disposing of Khashoggi’s body. This comes after a “nine-hour” search of the Saudi consulate building that, according to leaks published in Al-Jazeera, turned up “evidence of tampering” by the Saudis. On Tuesday, Turkey’s foreign minister clarified that Saudi had yet to admit its role in Khashoggi’s disappearance and probable death.
Turkish investigators will carry out a search of the Saudi Consul General’s residence on Tuesday as the probe into the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi continues, according to a Turkish diplomatic source.
CCTV footage released to the media from the day the Washington Post writer vanished show movement of vehicles from the consulate building to the Consul General’s residence nearby.
As speculation mounts that the incident could unseat the increasingly authoritarian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (who has already marginalized or incapacitated nearly every threat to his rule), it’s looking more likely that neither the US nor the rest of the Western world will do much to punish the world’s most important oil exporter, which can “weaponize” the oil market seemingly on a whim.
Any punishment for this flagrant violation of human rights will need to come, therefore, from the private sector, which, according to Bloomberg, could sabotage MbS’s grand Vision 2030 plan, which aims to remake the Saudi economy via a flood of foreign direct investment:
The economic strategy of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, known as MBS, is to make investment the main engine of economic growth instead of government spending, but the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi could frustrate these ambitions. Foreign direct investment, a key part of the plan to reinvent Saudi Arabia’s economy, declined sharply in 2017 and is unlikely to return to previous levels, leaving the government’s target for 2020 beyond reach, according to analysis by Bloomberg Economics. Increased policy uncertainty and, after the Khashoggi incident, the risk of reputational damage to foreign companies working in Saudi Arabia won’t help.

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Trump ready to drop hammer on Saudi Prince if he murdered Jamal Khashoggi (Video)

alayham — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 13:53:10 +0000

Trump ready to drop hammer on Saudi Prince if he murdered Jamal Khashoggi (Video) alayham Sun, 10/14/2018 - 15:53

US President Donald Trump went on 60 Minutes and vowed “severe punishment” on Saudi Arabia if it turns out that missing Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Trump told 60 Minutes that so far Saudi Arabia has denied playing a part in the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, but says the case is being investigated.
Trump has sat down in an interview wit CBS News to discuss the missing journalist, issuing a serious and stern warning to the Saudi Kingdom.
In an interview excerpt released from the 60 Minutes” interview, the US President noted that “nobody knows” whether Saudi officials are involved although they “deny it vehemently.”
Trump said that the Saudis deny “in every way you can imagine” having anything to do with Khashoggi’s disappearance when his son-in-law Jared Kushner spoke with the Saudi crown prince.
Trump stressed that Saudi Arabia may still be responsible and an investigation is ongoing.
“Could it be them? Yes,” the president said.

“It’s being looked at very, very strongly. We would be very upset and angry if that was the case.”
“We’re going to get to the bottom of it, and there will be severe punishment,”

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the explosive story surrounding missing WaPo Jamal Khashoggi, and how this may be Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman undoing, should evidence surface that he ordered the killing of Khashoggi.
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Via Zerohedge…

Khashoggi, a Saudi critic of the regime who wrote for the Washington Post, disappeared since he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 to pick up a document for his upcoming wedding. Turkish officials have said they believe he was killed and dismembered there.
On Saturday, the Turkish pro-government newspaper Sabah daily reported that Turkey’s investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance revealed recordings made on his Apple Watch purportedly indicating he was tortured and killed. The report was published after a delegation from Saudi Arabia arrived in Turkey for a joint investigation into his disappearance.
“The moments when Khashoggi was interrogated, tortured and murdered were recorded in the Apple Watch’s memory,” the paper said, adding that the watch had synched with his iPhone, which his fiancée was carrying outside the consulate. The Turkish newspaper said Saudi intelligence agents had realized after he died that the watch was recording and they used his finger print to unlock it, deleting some files, but not all of them. The recordings were subsequently found on his phone, it said.
That said, considering that Turkey has all too often stretched reality to suit its various political goals and ambitions – the “failed” 2016 coup coming to mind – any official Turkish version of events, especially one based on “sources” and without factual backing should be taken with a grain of salt.
Perhaps that explains why despite the escalation in rhetoric, Trump was still hesitant. In Trump’s interview, the president said new actions should not jeopardize the Saudi military equipment contracts held by companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon which he said would put jobs at risk.
Using the economy as a straw man to avoid cracking down on Riyadh, Trump siad that “I don’t want to hurt jobs. I don’t want to lose an order like that,” he said. “There are other ways of punishing, to use a word that’s a pretty harsh word, but it’s true.”
“There’s a lot at stake,” Mr. Trump continued, “And, maybe especially so because this man was a reporter. There’s something, you’ll be surprised to hear me say that, there’s something really terrible and disgusting about that if that was the case.”
As Bloomberg notes, Trump’s hesitation to strike back at the kingdom reflects close ties the White House has nurtured with the nation’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and his administration’s acquiescence to other Saudi actions that have drawn international condemnation.
What is perhaps more bizarre is that the true Saudi transgression, its ongoing war against political and religious opponents in Yemen has failed to lead to any condemnation, by either the president or the suddenly all too vocal Congress. Under Trump, the U.S. has continued to back – and equip – a Saudi bombing campaign against Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen that’s killed thousands of civilians, providing American logistical support and weapons.
Meanwhile, as senators push for sanctions against the Saudis if the murder allegations prove true, Trump has said only that he’d take unspecified action. “He went in and it doesn’t look like he came out,” the president observed in a Fox News interview.
Saudi Arabia insists Khashoggi left its consulate alive shortly, while Turkey claims it has proof, so far undisclosed, that the reporter was tortured and killed inside the consulate. What really happened has yet to be determined.

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