{"id":178295,"date":"2018-10-28T06:50:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T06:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=178295"},"modified":"2018-10-30T07:01:18","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T07:01:18","slug":"jamal-khashoggi-did-they-bury-him-with-his-body-facing-mecca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=178295","title":{"rendered":"Jamal Khashoggi: Did they bury him with his body facing Mecca?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Fisk — The Independent Oct 25, 2018<\/h1>\n
\"Evidence<\/a>

Jamal Khashoggi. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

I knew just what Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s murder really meant in the context of the Middle East last week when I realised just who I\u2019d have to call to explain it to me. Whom would I telephone to learn what was going on? Why, of course, I\u2019d call Jamal Khashoggi. And that\u2019s why his murder is so important. Because he was, as he knew, a lone and important Arab journalist who did not listen \u2013 not any more \u2014 to His Master\u2019s Voice. And that, of course, was his problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

This disgusting, dangerous, frightening, dirty murder \u2013 and don\u2019t tell me a man of 60 who dies in a \u201cfistfight\u201d with 15 men isn\u2019t murder \u2013 shows not just the Saudi government up for what it is, but it shows us up for what we are, too. How come we keep falling in love with Arab states \u2013 Israel does this, too \u2013 and then cry out with shock when they turn out to be extremely unpleasant and very violent?<\/span><\/p>\n

To answer this question, there are already several clues. Trump\u2019s initial reaction that the Saudi story was \u201ccredible\u201d \u2013 when it clearly was not \u2013 was a start. Then the murder became \u201cthe worst cover-up in history\u201d. It was the quality<\/em>\u00a0of the murder that was troubling him, you see. These chaps didn\u2019t know how to cover their tracks. He had already blurted out that he didn\u2019t want to give up US arms sales to Saudi Arabia. We had our own beloved prime minister referring to Jamal\u2019s gruesome murder as a \u201ckilling\u201d, rather than a murder. Then \u2013 and this was indicative because it was not contradicted \u2013 we had Adel Al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, referring to the murder as a \u201chuge and grave mistake\u201d. \u201cMISTAKE\u201d. Let me repeat that. MISTAKE!<\/span><\/p>\n

Al-Jubier, the former Saudi ambassador in Washington who was once reported to have himself been the intended victim of a would-be murderer in the US, was lecturing the press a year ago on how in its war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia \u201cabides by international humanitarian law\u201d. But not, it seems, by international diplomatic law. But hold on a minute. Al-Jubier \u2013 and I used to know him quite well many years ago \u2013 is a very eloquent and well-educated man. His English is flawless. When he used the word \u201cmistake\u201d, it was not a mistake. What he meant \u2013 what I think he meant \u2013 was that Jamal Khashoggi should not have been killed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jamal should not have become involved in that famous \u201cfistfight\u201d. Something went wrong. Perhaps the killers misunderstood their task. Rendition wasn\u2019t supposed to end in murder. Perhaps a friendly chat got out of hand. They didn\u2019t know their own strength. Before they knew it, Jamal, well, he walked into their fist. Or the fist of one of them. They made a \u201cmistake\u201d. And for that reason, we can forget about the 15 man hit team, not to mention Jamal\u2019s lookalike who strides out the back of the consulate \u2013 apparently in Jamal\u2019s own clothes, for heaven\u2019s sakes \u2013 and then later apparently tosses the same shirt, trousers and jacket into the garbage. And forget about the forensic scientist and the mysterious black van. And the initial two-week denial \u2013 which was self-evidently a bald and total lie from the first day. And this is a MISTAKE?<\/span><\/p>\n

We shouldn\u2019t, of course, have been surprised. The \u201cmistake\u201d was this week downgraded to a regrettable \u201cincident\u201d by a Saudi minister at the international business conference in Riyadh where the large number of western companies have downgraded their representation from CEOs to smaller CEOs. Mohammed bin Salman \u2013 did you see him beaming at his guests and joshing with King Abdullah of Jordan? \u2013 is squeaky clean, we have to believe. Untouchable. Innocent. As pure as the driven snow etc. But after his vile war in Yemen, his arrest of the most important princes and lucrative nabobs in Riyadh, his kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister and his assault on Qatar \u2013 demanding the closure of Al-Jazeera (which, of course, is much enjoying the current farrago) \u2013 should we be surprised if Mohammed bin Salman has got himself mixed up in, well, something that got out of hand, even if we\u2019re told he didn\u2019t at the time know anything had got out of hand or that anything had happened? A mistake, for example. If the Yemen war can get out of hand \u2013 can even turn out to be a mistake \u2013 well, what can you expect will happen when a bunch of thugs are flown into Istanbul in Saudi jets? I did, by the way, love the touch that they flew in to separate Istanbul airports. That really put the Turks off the scent, didn\u2019t it? Not perhaps the worst cover-up in history. Certainly a mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n

And you\u2019d have to note, wouldn\u2019t you, the repulsive and hypocritical outpouring of anger by our brave and moral western leaders at Jamal\u2019s murder. They\u2019ve been tut-tutting for two years about the Yemen war, making excuses for it, selling arms for it and avoiding personal responsibility for it, and it\u2019s quite obvious that they care far, far more about Jamal\u2019s death than about the 5,000 civilians who have been killed in the Yemeni conflict. What is a child\u2019s death worth or the killing of guests at a wedding party compared to Jamal\u2019s murder? I guess that we can always find excuses for Yemeni casualties \u2013 \u201ccollateral damage\u201d, \u201chuman shields\u201d, \u201cfull investigation\u201d, etc \u2013 but Jamal\u2019s murder was just too obvious, too packed with lies, too thug-like. We \u2013 rather like the Crown Prince, May His Name Be Praised \u2013 ran out of excuses. Heavens above, what would we do if we discovered that the infamous knife \u2013 always supposing there was a knife and that Jamal was dismembered \u2013 was made in Sheffield?<\/span><\/p>\n

Naturally, we all hope Jamal was not dismembered. If Adel al-Jubier doesn\u2019t know and if the cupboard-opening Saudi consul doesn\u2019t know \u2013 and since he\u2019s safely back in Riyadh, we aren\u2019t going to find out \u2013 and if Mohammed bin Salman doesn\u2019t know \u2013 which he can\u2019t know, can he, because he knows nothing about this atrocity \u2013 then we can all hope that Jamal was given a solemn and dignified Muslim burial with all the correct prayers said for his soul and his body buried \u2013 secretly, of course \u2013 shrouded and on its right side and in the direction of Mecca, the Holy city of which Mohammed bin Salman\u2019s father, the King, is officially the Protector.<\/span><\/p>\n

This will not have been easy to accomplish if Jamal was indeed chopped up by our favourite forensic scientist and taken to the consul\u2019s home or a forest \u2013 the Turkish version \u2013 for a secret burial. But then again, maybe, on the way to the forest \u2013 if it was a forest \u2013 the burial party thought that, given the piety of their country, let alone their faith, he really should be given a Muslim funeral. By that stage, however, they would have realised that they might have committed a \u201cgrave and terrible mistake\u201d. Under Islamic law, a mutilated body must be sewn up before being placed in a shroud. Did they sew Jamal up? And put him in a shroud?<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, it sticks in our craw that the man who has been leaking every detail of Jamal\u2019s appalling death \u2013 the Sultan Erdogan himself has imprisoned up to 245 journalists and between 50,000 and 60,000 political prisoners \u2013 should be reaping the benefits of this ghoulish and terrible story. Well, at least he doesn\u2019t chop them all up, claim they walked out of prison almost as soon as they were incarcerated and then admit that he doesn\u2019t know where their bodies are.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yes, this murder is going to affect Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Syria \u2013 and Israel, which was sighing with affection for Mohammed bin Salman \u2013 and, of course, Trump, but let\u2019s go back to that first question. How come the \u201cgood guys\u201d turn out to be bad guys? How come those nice, moderate leaders who guarantee the \u201cstability\u201d of the Middle East \u2013 and naturally I\u2019m including the Saudis in this \u2013 turn out to be so horrible. Not the people. I\u2019m talking about the autocrats and dictators and kings and princes and venal tyrants to whom we smile and grovel and fawn and kneel.<\/span><\/p>\n

We now all love the \u201cmoderate\u201d and \u201cstabilising\u201d regime of President\/Field Marshal Sisi of Egypt. But who now remembers the young Italian Cambridge University student Giulio Regeni, tortured with knives for a week and murdered \u2014 only two years ago \u2013 and dumped on a Cairo roadside? The Italians suspected Sisi\u2019s cops did the deed \u2013 there was even a case of a CCTV camera not working. How these things always seem to happen at the wrong (right) moment. Egyptians know the name of the chief suspect among the cops. Perish the thought, said the regime. So Rome and Cairo have made up and Italian tourists arriving in Egypt are not bothered about the 40,000 or 50,000 or 60,000 political prisoners rotting in Egypt\u2019s jails. Regeni\u2019s body had stab wounds. Funny how sharp-edged instruments seem to find favour with Arab regimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who recalls how we first loved Muammar Al-Gaddafi when he deposed King Idris of Libya and then hated him when he helped the IRA and then loved him when he gave up the nuclear facilities he didn\u2019t understand and was kissed by Tony Blair, after which we helped in the rendition of Gaddafi\u2019s opponents so they could be tortured in the Libyan dictator\u2019s death prisons. Let us not even mention Saddam Hussein, whom we supported in his war with Iran \u2013 even when he used chemical weapons \u2013 until he invaded Kuwait and then supposedly possessed weapons of mass destruction and was eventually overthrown by us and executed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Bashar al-Assad, feted in Paris on Bastille Day, the face of modern Syria whose father massacred up to 20,000 in the 1982 Hama uprising, and then accused of the death of more than half a million in a Syrian civil war in which countless thousands were killed by both the regime and by the Islamists armed and paid for by \u2013 yes \u2013 Saudi Arabia. If the Assad regime was synonymous with hanging, ISIS brought the crucifixion posts to Syria. And the beheading blocks. Sharp-edged instruments again. Of course, the Saudis deny all this. For it\u2019s as unthinkable for Saudis to support a death cult as it is unthinkable for the same government to send a death squad to Istanbul.<\/span><\/p>\n

They would never commit such a terrorist act \u2013 or mistake \u2013 any more than they would execute their enemies en masse in Saudi Arabia itself. After all, the chopping off of the head of the Saudi Shia religious leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr (and 46 others) occurred before Mohammed Bin Salman was Crown Prince. So did the British Aerospace scandal of millions in backhanders over the al-Yamamah weapons deal \u2013 which the British police investigated until the cops\u2019 questions were closed down when Tony Blair knelt to Saudi pressure and put an end to such an inconvenient enquiry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yup, it\u2019s about money and wealth and power \u2013 and because all these folk were kept in power by the folly and lies and corruption and hypocrisy of our own political leaders. Let our satraps get away with Croesus-like corruption and mass murder, and what do you expect? We made them, sustained them, supported them, kissed them, loved them. What\u2019s an invasion or two between friends? Isn\u2019t Saudi Arabia vital to our UK security \u2013 that was supposedly one of the reasons why we dropped the al-Yamamah investigation \u2013 and we\u2019ll hear it again from Saudi Arabia\u2019s lackeys in Britain in the coming days and weeks. What would happen if we Brits didn\u2019t get all this information about Islamist terror from the Saudis? Well, let\u2019s hope they wouldn\u2019t send 15 chaps to Heathrow, including a forensic scientist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jamal Khashoggi knew all about power and danger. Almost a quarter of a century ago, he turned up at my hotel in Khartoum and drove me into the Sudanese desert to meet Osama bin Laden \u2013 whom he met during the Afghan-Soviet war. \u201cHe has never met a western reporter before,\u201d he said as we sped past ancient Sudanese pyramids. \u201cThis will be interesting.\u201d Khashoggi was indulging in applied psychology. How would bin Laden respond to an infidel? Though woe betide anyone who thought that Khashoggi\u2019s round spectacles and roguish sense of humour was a sign of spiritual laxity. He called bin Laden \u201cSheikh Osama\u201d. I first met Khashoggi in 1990 and last spoke to him on the phone from Beirut to Washington a couple of months ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even when he was an adviser to the Royal Family and an editor and journalist in Saudi Arabia, he spoke about the \u201cfacts of life\u201d as he would call them. Talking privately, he would dismiss all rumours of a palace revolution in the Kingdom. But he always talked about the cynicism and venality of the western powers who propped up the Arab regimes and then destroyed them if they did not obey, of how Arabs, in general, were not a free people. Which is true. And maybe what he would have repeated to me if I could have talked to him before that \u201cmistake\u201d occurred in Istanbul. Dead men, however, don\u2019t talk. And the Saudis must be mighty pleased about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Khashoggi knew all about power and danger. Twenty-five years ago he turned up at my hotel in Khartoum and drove me into the Sudanese desert to meet bin Laden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=178295"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178298,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178295\/revisions\/178298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=178295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=178295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=178295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}