Top Secret Saudi Documents Reveal Khashoggi Killers Used Company Seized by Saudi Crown Prince

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The documents, filed earlier this year as part of a Canadian civil lawsuit, are labeled “Top Secret” and signed by a Saudi minister who passed orders from the Crown Prince, the young de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.

“By the instruction of His Highness the Crown Prince,” the minister wrote according to a translation, “you immediately approve the completion of the necessary procedures for this.”

The filing explains how ownership of Sky Prime Aviation was to be transferred to the country’s $ 400 billion state investment fund in late 2017. The company’s planes were later used in the October 2018 murder of Khashoggi.

The Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund known as the Public Investment Fund is controlled by the Saudi Crown and chaired by the Crown Prince, known as MBS. The documents proving the link between the planes and the prince were submitted by a group of Saudi state-owned companies as part of an embezzlement they opened in Canada last month against a former top Saudi official, Saad Aljabri.
The allegations of embezzlement against Aljabri came after a lawsuit he filed last year in Washington, DC, District Court against MBS. Aljabri has accused the crown prince of sending a hit to kill him in Canada just days after Khashoggi was killed. MBS was summoned via WhatsApp and in December a lawyer for the prince asked the court to dismiss the case.
Evidence that ownership of the private jet fleet was transferred to Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund has not been previously reported and provides another link between Khashoggi’s deaths and MBS. In October 2018, not long after Khashoggi’s murder, the Wall Street Journal reported, referring to people familiar with the case, that the Gulfstream jets used by the killers were owned by a company controlled by MBS. .

He would have followed it [the company] and would have known how it was used, ”Dan Hoffman, the former CIA’s Middle East Division director, said of the mighty Crown Prince. And it’s just more potential evidence that he was aware of this. That has always been the discussion. This is just more proof of that. “

On Thursday, the US intelligence community will release a long-awaited report with new public details about those behind Khashoggi’s death. Not long after the Saudi journalist was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the CIA ruled with great confidence that MBS had personally ordered the murder, but intelligence officials never spoke publicly or presented evidence. A United Nations researcher discovered in June 2019 that it was “unthinkable” that MBS was unaware of the operation.
Saudi officials in Washington and Riyadh did not immediately respond to the new revelations. MBS has denied ordering Khashoggi’s murder but said he bears the responsibility. Eight suspects were sentenced to prison in what the UN investigator called a “parody of justice.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week that President Joe Biden is working to “reassess” America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and plans to communicate with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud instead of with his son, the crown prince.
Jamal Khashoggi, looks on at a press conference in the Bahraini capital Manama on December 15, 2014.

Faisal Gill, an attorney for Khashoggi’s former fiancé and a nonprofit who has filed a federal lawsuit against MBS and two dozen co-defendants, said his client was “pleasantly surprised” that evidence of Bin Salman’s control over Sky Prime Aviation was revealed. has come. .

“Any evidence that actually links MBS and others, especially in a direct way, which we think is the case, is extremely important,” said Gill.

[MBS] wanted to use a company that he manages, in a fund that he absolutely controls, hoping it wouldn’t come out, “added Gill.” To me, that’s not only a direct line to him killing Jamal, but a direct line from him as well. trying to cover it up with the help of an aviation company over which he has absolute control. “

Sky Prime Aviation operates the two Gulfstream corporate jets that flew to and from Istanbul with the bulk of the hit 15-man team, according to public aviation data and a United Nations report on Khashoggi’s death.

According to the UN report, after Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, the killers quickly escaped and headed for the planes. A jet, tail number HZ-SK1, had just landed that evening. An hour and a quarter after landing it was back on the air with six members of the Saudi team. Four and a half hours later, the second plane, tail number HZ-SK2, took off from Ataturk Airport with seven men on board, the UN report said.

The first jet flew through Cairo, the second through Dubai on its way back to Riyadh. The last two members of the hit team flew a commercial from Istanbul to Riyadh.

Sky Prime Aviation was run by Aljabri’s son-in-law, Salem Almuzaini. According to an amended complaint filed by Aljabri against MBS in Washington DC this month, Almuzaini was kidnapped in Dubai in September 2017 and forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia.

According to Aljabri, Almuzaini was tortured and abused for several months, including by a top MBS employee involved in the murder of Khashoggi. Ultimately, Almuzaini was moved to the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh, where MBS detained approximately 200 Saudi royals, officials and businessmen in the name of an anti-corruption campaign. The state claims it ultimately seized about $ 100 billion in settlements.

The documents ordering the transfer of Sky Prime Aviation in December 2017 included the Saudi Kingdom’s palm tree seal with crossed swords and the words “TOP SECRET NOT FOR CIRCULATION AND HEY URGENT,” according to the translation provided to the court. Another document attesting to the transfer of shares is signed by Almuzaini, whose current whereabouts are unknown.

The letters ordering the transfer are signed by Mohammed Al-Alsheikh, a fellow board member of the fund who, according to the fund’s website, is on the cabinet. Two other senior officials of the fund received the notes, one of which is handwritten and contains instructions “to do whatever it takes to transfer the companies’ properties as soon as possible.”

Sky Prime Aviation, three of its Sky subsidiaries and 16 other companies were transferred to the fund by Alsheikh.

It was so important to the Crown Prince that the fund took over the companies, Alsheikh wrote, that “His Highness should be kept informed of what is being done.”

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