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As Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pushed through ambitious social reforms, he also ordered a zero-tolerance campaign against dissent spearheaded by his most trusted confidant, who is now implicated in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashogg.
People with knowledge of the work of Saud al-Qahtani say he was intimately involved in the kingdom’s targeting Mr. Khashoggi—from efforts to persuade him to return to Saudi Arabia from the U.S., to the planning and execution of the operation that ended with his death in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. He is under criminal investigation, these people say, and has been fired from his job as the crown prince’s media adviser.
The alleged role of Mr. Qahtani in the murder is complicating Saudi Arabia’s efforts to separate its de facto leader, Prince Mohammed, from a killing that has triggered a diplomatic crisis for the kingdom and caused deep angst within the royal court.
“Whether or not he knew about it,” a Western official said of the crown prince, “this happened under his watch.”
Mr. Qahtani and Saudi government representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Saudi government has repeatedly denied that Prince Mohammed had any direct knowledge of the operation, despite persistent suspicions by Turkish and Western officials that he must have known about it. The prince condemned the killing as a “hideous incident” and vowed to deliver justice.
This account of Mr. Qahtani’s role in the targeting of Mr. Khashoggi and other dissidents is based on interviews with members of the Saudi royal family, government advisers, Western officials, activists and other people familiar with Mr. Qahtani and his work.
The 40-year-old, though nominally the prince’s media adviser, was effectively the Saudi ruler’s right-hand man, with extensive sway over domestic and foreign affairs, people familiar with the matter said. The crown prince last year also put Mr. Qahtani in charge of an effort to repatriate dissidents, some of these people said.
One of Mr. Qahtani’s first targets was Mr. Khashoggi, a onetime insider turned government critic whose stinging tweets and Washington Post columns irritated the royal court. At first, Mr. Qahtani used flattery in the name of his boss to lure him back.
“The Crown Prince values your role as an editor,” the messenger, Mr. Qahtani, told Mr. Khashoggi on WhatsApp, a friend of the journalist said. “He wants you back in Saudi Arabia.”
When the journalist refused to return to the kingdom from the U.S., the Saudi government banned his son Salah from leaving.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, seen in March, was deeply upset by his father’s decision to remove Mr. Qahtani from office, two people familiar with the matter said.
Photo:
Cliff Owen/Associated Press
“I cannot believe you are stooping so low, and that even family members are being targeted now,” Mr. Khashoggi told Mr. Qahtani after he learned of the travel ban on Salah, a friend of the journalist familiar with the message exchange on WhatsApp said. Mr. Qahtani never replied. The Saudi government lifted the ban last week.
When Mr. Khashoggi entered the consulate in Istanbul for a scheduled meeting on Oct. 2, 18 operatives dispatched from Riyadh were waiting for him. The consular official who scheduled the meeting had been in touch with Mr. Qahtani, two people familiar with the matter said.
Another trusted aide of Prince Mohammed assembled the team of operatives: Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, the deputy chief of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence, who had worked closely with Mr. Qahtani in a previous role as a spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition fighting in Yemen.
Gen. Assiri received the order to assemble and dispatch the team to Istanbul from Mr. Qahtani, several people familiar with the matter said.
“Saud al-Qahtani gave the impression that what he said was what MBS wanted,” a person familiar with the investigation said, using the acronym by which Prince Mohammed is also known.
The operatives flew to Turkey from Riyadh on two Gulfstream jets operated by Sky Prime Aviation Services Ltd., a company controlled by Prince Mohammed’s office. Mr. Qahtani was responsible for approving the use of those jets, three people familiar with matter said.
Turkish authorities say the journalist was strangled to death and dismembered shortly after he set foot in the consulate. The Saudi government has acknowledged the murder was likely premeditated.
Saudi authorities have so far detained 18 men pending the results of an investigation into the killing. Like Mr. Qahtani, Gen. Assiri is also under criminal investigation for his alleged role in orchestrating and covering up Mr. Khashoggi’s death. While their movements are restricted, neither has been detained, people familiar with the matter said.
Both were fired by King Salman after he was briefed on the evidence Turkish authorities gathered. Prince Mohammed was deeply upset by his father’s decision to remove Mr. Qahtani from office, two people familiar with the matter said. He openly complained that “Saud was the one who kept this place running,” one of these people said.
Mr. Qahtani first joined the royal court under the previous monarch, King Abdullah. But his stature rose dramatically with the ascension to power of King Salman and his son, Prince Mohammed, in 2015, when Mr. Qahtani was formally appointed as an adviser to the royal court with the rank of minister.
Under Prince Mohammed’s patronage, Mr. Qahtani tightened controls on the domestic press and assembled a 3,000-strong team to monitor and intimidate critics on social media, and spread pro-government messages, people familiar with the matter said.
In the U.S., Mr. Khashoggi worked to counter Mr. Qahtani’s pro-government effort by assembling a rival online team that included a prominent Saudi dissident based in Canada, Omar Abdulaziz. “It is not about him,” said Mr. Abdulaziz of Mr. Qahtani. “It is the system.”
He added: “As long as MBS is there, we are in danger.”
Mr. Qahtani also became a leading force behind some of Prince Mohammed’s most controversial decisions, including the rupture of ties with Qatar and the arrest of women’s rights activists, people familiar with the matter said.
As he hunted online for Saudis who expressed sympathy for rival Qatar, Mr. Qahtani in August 2017 wrote on Twitter: “Do you think I make decisions without guidance? I am an employee and an executor of the orders of the king and the crown prince.”
As a first option in luring back dissidents, Mr. Qahtani often preferred flattery. Last year, he sent a direct message on Twitter to Manal al-Sharif, a leading Saudi rights activist based in Australia who had written an article on the kingdom’s decision to lift the driving ban on women that pointed out obstacles women continue to face.
“Hello sister Manal, nice article. God bless you my dear sister. Let me know if you need any service,” he said in the message, viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Qahtani said he would help her obtain a Saudi visa for her son in Australia so that they could both travel to the kingdom—an offer Ms. al-Sharif initially welcomed but later suspected was a ruse to get her back to Saudi Arabia.
Around the same time, Mr. Qahtani was carrying out a campaign of silencing women’s rights activists, people familiar with the matter said. Those targeted include Loujain al-Hathloul, who was living in the United Arab Emirates when local authorities in March pulled her out of her car and put her on a plane to Saudi Arabia, a person familiar with the incident said.
Ms. al-Hathloul was one of at least 14 civil-rights activists who were arrested in Saudi Arabia in May. When asked about the arrests, Mr. Qahtani told a person by phone that it was “to let them know that no one can twist the government’s arm,” a person briefed on the conversation said.
A former colleague said Mr. Qahtani’s efforts to silence dissenters on behalf of his boss may have gotten the best of him. “If he had truly ordered this,” the former colleague said of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, “then he miscalculated every single step.”
Write to Margherita Stancati at [email protected] and Summer Said at [email protected]
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