How the man behind the murder of Khashoggi led the murder via Skype

(Reuters) – He ran social media for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He organized the arrest of hundreds of elites from his country. He arrested a Lebanese prime minister. And, according to two sources of information, he allegedly directed the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by giving orders on Skype.

Saud al-Qahtani, one of the chief collaborators of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is one of the protagonists of the fall as Riyadh tries to end the international indignation caused by the death from Khashoggi. On Saturday, Saudi official media announced that King Salman had fired Qahtani and four other leaders for the murder of a team of 15 people.

But Qahtani's influence in the entourage of the Crown Prince has been so great in the last three years – his own ascent being the same as that of his boss – that it will be difficult for the Saudi authorities to portray Qahtani as the mastermind of the murder without questioning the involvement of Prince Mohammed, according to several sources with links to the royal court.

"This episode will not overthrow MbS, but its image will be affected and it will take a long time to repair it, if ever.The King protects it," said one of the sources related to the royal court.

Qahtani himself once said that he would never do anything without his boss's approval.

"Do you think I make decisions without a guide? I am a loyal employee and executor of the orders of my lord the king and my lord the faithful Crown Prince, "Qahtani said last summer.

Qahtani did not answer Reuters' questions. His biography on Twitter has changed in recent days, from Royal Advisor to President of the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones, a role he had previously held.

Prince Mohammed was unaware of the operation that led to Khashoggi's death and "certainly did not order the kidnapping or killing of anyone," a Saudi official said Saturday. Officials in Riyadh could not be contacted for further comments.

As the crisis worsens over the past three weeks, Saudi Arabia has changed its narrative about Khashoggi's fate. She first denied her death, then claimed her death in a fight at the consulate, and then blamed this death on a crazy nest.

A senior Saudi official told Reuters that the assassins had tried to hide what had happened, saying the truth was just beginning. The Turks reject this version of the story by saying that they have audio recordings of what happened.

The kingdom has survived other crises over the past year, including the fallout from the short-lived abduction of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri by the Crown Prince in 2017. Hariri also was verbally humiliated and beaten, according to eight Saudi nationals, Arabs and Western diplomatic sources. The man leading the interrogation: Saud al-Qahtani.

France intervened to free Hariri, but Western capitals did not blame Riyadh for detaining a government leader – and Prince Mohammed emerged emboldened, according to Saudi sources.

This time is different, with some Western capitals increasingly critical of Saudi killing and explanation.

Germany has announced it will stop arms sales, while Britain, France and Germany have issued a joint statement calling for an "urgent clarification of exactly what happened on 2 October" .

President Donald Trump said that he was not satisfied with the Saudi inquiry, but that he did not want to compromise the arms sales in the United States.

SKYPE CALL

To curb the aftermath of Khashoggi's assassination, the Crown Prince, commonly known as MbS, has allowed Qahtani to take his fall, according to a source close to the Saudi royal court.

A second senior Saudi official said Qahtani was arrested after being fired by royal decree, but he continued to tweet afterwards. Sources with links to the royal court said that he was not under arrest.

At the time of Khashoggi's assassination, Qahtani was present as he was at other key moments in MbS's administration. This time, however, his presence was virtual.

Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist based in the United States and often critical of Saudi Arabia and its leaders, went to the consulate in Istanbul around 2 am October 2, to obtain documents allowing him to get married.

Turkish security sources said he was immediately seized inside the consulate by 15 Saudi intelligence agents who had flown in two hours earlier.

According to a senior Arab source with access to intelligence and links with members of the Saudi royal court, Qahtani was allegedly teleported to a Saudi consulate room via Skype.

He started throwing insults at Khashoggi on the phone. According to Arab and Turkish sources, Khashoggi reportedly responded to Qahtani's insults with his own. But he was no match for the team, which included senior security and intelligence officials, some with direct links to the royal court.

A Turkish intelligence source announced at one point that Qahtani had ordered his men to get rid of Khashoggi. "Bring me the dog's head," said Qahtani, the source of the Turkish intelligence.

It is unclear whether Qahtani followed the whole procedure, which the high-ranking Arab source described as a "sloppy and sloppy operation".

The Arab source and source of Turkish intelligence said that the Skype call audio was now in the hands of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. Sources say that he refuses to disclose it to Americans.

Erdogan announced on Sunday that he would publish information on the Turkish inquiry during a weekly speech on Tuesday. Three Turkish officials contacted by Reuters declined to comment before the speech.

The senior Saudi official who exposed the official version of the events – claiming that Khashoggi had beaten him – said he had not heard of Qahtani's appearance via Skype, but that the Saudi investigation was under way.

QAHTANI'S RISE

Qahtani, 40, has earned a reputation for being both an outspoken violator of princely quirks and a strident nationalist. On blogs and social media, some Saudi liberal journalists and activists dubbed him Saudi Steve Bannon for his aggressive manipulation of the media and behind-the-scenes strategies.

Qahtani wrote odes on Twitter to the royal family under the pseudonym Dari, which means predator in Arabic. Some of his opponents on social media call him Dalim, a figure of Arab folklore who has gone from humble servant to much higher heights.

According to his biography on his Twitter account, Qahtani studied law and earned the rank of Saudi Air Force captain. After launching a blog, he drew the attention of Khaled al-Tuwaijri, the former head of the royal court, who had hired him in the early 2000s to lead an army of electronic media responsible for protecting the image of Saudi Arabia, according to a source close to the royal court.

Tuwaijri is under house arrest and could not be reached for comment.

Qahtani gained in importance after catching Prince Mohammed, who was part of his father Salman's court as governor of Riyadh, then crown prince and finally king in 2015

Charged with thwarting Qatari's alleged influence on social media, Qahtani used Twitter to attack critics of the kingdom in general and Prince Mohammed in particular. He also ran a WhatsApp group with local newspaper editors and prominent journalists, dictating the line of the royal court.

When Riyadh led an economic boycott against Qatar in June 2017, Qahtani stepped up its attacks on the small Gulf state. Online, he urged the Saudis to tweet the names of all those who show sympathy for Qatar under the Arabic hashtag "The Black List".

The top Arab official and Saudi sources with ties to the royal court said that Qahtani was MbS's "bad cop" when last year, 200 people, including princes, ministers and men, were killed. 39, Saudi cases, were arrested and placed under house arrest at the Ritz Carlton. in an anti-corruption scan. Qahtani oversaw some of the interrogations, an Arab official said.

A KIDNAPPING

The extent of Qahtani's power is perhaps best illustrated by the abduction of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri last year, said several Saudi and Arab diplomatic sources.

The Saudis were furious over the inability of Hariri, a Sunni Muslim and Saudi client, to stand up to their regional rival, Iran and Hezbollah, the Shiite paramilitary movement that is spearheading Tehran in the region. Hariri belonged to the same multi-party coalition government as Hezbollah.

The Saudis were particularly appalled by the fact that Mr. Hariri had not sent a message to one of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's top advisers, asking him to stop interfering in Lebanon and Yemen. Hariri claimed to have conveyed the Saudi message, but an informant, installed by Qahtani in Hariri's entourage, handed over to the Saudis the minutes of the meeting which showed that he had not done so yet.

The Saudis drew Hariri to Riyadh for a meeting with MbS. Upon his arrival on November 3, 2017, there was no line of princes or Saudi officials, as would a prime minister usually during an official visit. Hariri then received a call for the meeting with the crown prince to take place the next day in a royal enclosure.

When Hariri arrived, he was taken to a room where Qahtani was waiting with a security team, according to three Arab sources close to the incident. The security team beat Hariri; Qahtani insulted him and then forced him to resign as prime minister in a statement broadcast by a Saudi television channel.

"He (Qahtani) told him that you had no choice but to resign and read this statement," said one of the sources. "Qahtani oversaw the interrogation and mistreatment of Hariri."

Another source said it was the intervention of French President Emmanuel Macron who had ensured his release as a result of an international outcry.

Macron claimed merit in May for ending the crisis, saying that an unplanned stopover in Riyadh to convince MbS, followed by an invitation to Hariri to come to France, had been the catalyst that solved it. Lebanese officials confirmed to Reuters that Macron's swift intervention had secured Hariri's return.

Saudi officials could not be contacted to comment on the chronology of events or Qahtani's participation. French officials declined to comment when asked about Qahtani's role.

A RETURN OFFER AT HOME

At least three friends of Khashoggi told Reuters that in the months following his arrival in Washington, the journalist had received several calls from MbS's right-hand man asking him to return to Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi had hesitated, they said, fearing retaliation for his Washington Post columns and frank views.

Qahtani tried to reassure the former editor of the newspaper that he was still well respected and offered the journalist a job as a consultant to the royal court, the friends said.

Khashoggi said that although he found Qahtani mild and polite in these conversations, he did not trust him, a close friend told Reuters. "Jamal told me later," he thinks I'm going to go back there to throw him in jail? "

The second senior Saudi official confirmed that Qahtani had told Khashoggi about his return home. The ambush in Istanbul seems to have been another way to take him home.

What did the Crown Prince know about his trusted assistant's plan to abduct Khashoggi?

Most of the 15 seamen identified by the Turkish and Saudi authorities worked for the kingdom's security and intelligence services, the army, the ministries, royal court security and aviation. One of them, General Maher Mutreb, senior intelligence officer, who is part of Prince Mohammed's security team, appeared on pictures with him during his visits official earlier this year in the United States and Europe.

The senior Arab official and the source of Turkish intelligence said that it was Mutreb's phone that was used to dial the Qahtani number while Khashoggi was being interrogated.

Reuters attempted to contact members of the 15-person team, but their phones were either turned off, on voice mail or no longer in use.

The Saudi official said that Deputy Intelligence General Ahmed al-Asiri had gathered the 15 members of the security and intelligence forces. Asiri was one of five dismissed officials on Saturday.

Another key figure was Dr. Salah al-Tubaigy, a forensic medical expert specializing in autopsies at the Saudi Ministry of the Interior. His presence – equipped with a bone saw according to Turkish sources, reportedly used to dismember the journalist – is difficult to explain in the context of an operation that would aim to persuade Khashoggi to return home.

It is hard to imagine that the Crown Prince would have known of such a delicate operation, Saudi sources linked to the royal court said.

The Saudi official who spoke on Saturday said that an existing standing order authorized to "negotiate" with the dissidents to return home without requiring approval, but that the team involved with Khashoggi had exceeded this authorization.

Another Saudi official close to the investigation said that Qahtani had decided on his own to arrange the abduction of Khashoggi and that he had asked Asiri to form a team, but that their plans went wrong.

The last act of Qahtani could well be to serve his boss by assuming responsibility for the crisis that has hit Saudi Arabia since the murder of Khashoggi. The Saudi king sacked Qahtani and ordered the restructuring of the general intelligence agency.

To direct him, he named MbS.