Five years ago, Jamal Khashoggi walked into Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul to pick up a document he needed in order to marry his Turkish fiancee. The journalist never walked out. Inside the consulate, he was ambushed by a 15-member Saudi hit team, who suffocated him and dismembered his body with a bone saw. The death squad then slipped out of Turkey on two charter planes owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Since then, Mohammed bin Salman – Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, who, according to US intelligence officials, approved Khashoggi’s assassination – has managed a near complete rehabilitation of his increasingly autocratic regime. Prince Mohammed has met with Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders; he’s positioning Saudi Arabia as a global tourism destination; and he’s plowing ahead with plans to build Neom, his $500bn futuristic city in the desert. The prince has spent more than $6bn on investments in football teams, golf tournaments and other sports deals. He’s pouring billions more into Silicon Valley tech companies – all part of an effort to whitewash the kingdom’s abysmal human rights record.
