RedHanded - Episode 184 - The Execution of Jamal Khashoggi

Episode Date: February 11, 2021

At 1:14pm on 2 October 2018, Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Within minutes he was killed and dismembered by a 15 man hit squad sent from Riyadh. To this day Jamal’s remains have never been found. And aside from a secretive trial conducted by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - the man who according to the CIA and Turkish intelligence ordered the hit - Jamal has had no justice. Sources: www.redhandedpodcast.com    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah, check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made.

A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed, where this week we've got kind of a different one for you. It's very much like get your geopolitical trainers on. And your thinking caps. And your keeping up with everything joggers. Yeah. The full outfit.

The full ensemble. And your Arabic caps and your keeping up with everything joggers. Yeah. The full outfit, the full ensemble. And your Arabic pronunciation ears. And maybe a tinfoil hat too, possibly under the hat. There's a lot, guys. We are going on a world tour of misogyny, despotism and murder. And sneaky, sneaky spies. It's a lot but I think you guys are going to enjoy it. Yes.

I hope so. I mean some of it's not going to be enjoyable for you unless you like chopping off hands but we'll get through it together. So just be warned it's a lot of like red handed quick rundowns of immensely huge inexplicably large transformational geopolitical

issues crammed into about an hour-long episode. We understand that we're skimming over a lot of stuff, but we have to because that's podcasting. So with that being said, let's go. Every murder sends ripples of pain across a family, a community, maybe even a country. But what about a murder that shook the world? A murder with an impact so powerful that it destroyed global political reputations, tore through geopolitical ties, overturned international diplomatic relations, isolated an all-powerful monarch, and transformed power structures in the Middle East and the Arab world. A murder so consequential and transformational

that the size of its impact on a global scale is like something we've not seen for decades. The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2017 in Istanbul, Turkey is that murder. But before we get there, we need to start about 2,000 miles away in Saudi Arabia. Somewhere we most certainly have not been on the show or physically. Doesn't sound like my vibe, honestly. But we still need to understand it. So let's talk about it. Politically speaking, if we are going to wrap our heads around what happened to Jamal, we need to understand what Saudi Arabia's whole vibe is. I remember the first episode of Jonathan Van Ness's podcast I ever listened to was called Is Saudi Arabia Cute Now? Short answer, no, JVN. No,

it's not. No. But it is a big theme of this show, like how they tried to make it cute. Yeah. And it's like, nah, still not though. That's the problem. Still very not. However, it is currently, as we are recording this in 2021, just before the apocalypse, Saudi Arabia is the most powerful country in the Arab world. And its impact on the wider geopolitical stage is down to its position as the world's number one oil exporter, because that, failing all else, will do it. The nation is ruled by an absolute monarchy dating back hundreds of years. The royal family, the House of Saud, is today worth around 1.4 trillion US dollars. And one of the things about Saudi Arabia is you don't have to pay any tax.

So it's quite easy. Not quite easy. It's easier to accumulate that kind of wealth than it would be in other places. Especially if you're the king. Especially if you are the king of the no-tax land. And as the description absolute monarchy suggests, the House of Saud hold absolute power in Saudi Arabia. Back in 2017, when the current king, Salman bin Abdulaziz, named his son, Mohammed bin Salman, from his third wife as his successor, immediately rumours began swirling as to why king salman had an older son who was already

the crown prince and so next in line to the throne in fact there were three sons older than muhammad bin salman but prince muhammad who you will often hear referred to in newspapers and on the news and everywhere fucking else as mbs but i really don't want to call him that. And we're not going to be fucking calling him that. He wanted it all. And the ambitious millennial prince wasn't going to let anyone or anything stop him. It's kind of like him calling himself like LL Cool J. No shade on LL, but I'm sure he's fine. Yeah, he's just like, don't worry about it. I'm the fucking crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Just call me MBS. Shut up. It's kind of interesting that you point that out, though, because he is obviously crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. His big aim, his big ambition, as we see throughout this episode, is moving into the West, is softening that image, the whole PR thing.

And it's classic, isn't it? He's like, you know, Mohammed bin Salman doesn't roll off the tongue for a lot of Westerners. I'll call myself MBS. That's what it feels like. And we're not going to be calling him that on this show, so fuck him. And at first, when it was announced that Mohammed bin Salman would take over after the death of his 84-year-old father, the world was intrigued, happy even, because the new Crown Prince Mohammed proclaimed himself to be a reformer. He promised to roll back archaic rules that had existed for generations in Saudi Arabia,

like the guardianship rule, which was a law whereby every woman must have a male guardian who makes all of the decisions regarding her life, like Britney Spears' dad, hashtag save Britney, from the mundane to the vital. It's usually the woman's father and then her life, like Britney Spears' dad, hashtag save Britney, from the mundane to the vital. It's usually the woman's father and then her husband. And if her husband dies, it could even be her own son. Essentially, women are treated like children for their entire lives. And law dictates that a man must be responsible for them and accompany them everywhere. And before anyone comes for us,

yes, in 2018, the Crown Prince lifted the ban on women driving, which we've talked about this on the show before. They still need permission from a man to drive. They can't just drive. Yeah. And most of them still don't have jobs. So like, where are you getting this car and all the fucking car money from? Like, a man man and then in august 2019 he issued a royal decree loosening the guardianship law loosening being the key word not getting rid of or ending because there are still a lot of loopholes kicking around for example in saudi arabia a man has a legal right to report a woman related to him missing if she's absent from the home. So if a woman goes somewhere without telling the men in her family, or if she goes somewhere they don't like, they can

call the police on her. And the police can capture this, air quotes, missing woman and throw her in a detention centre or even sentence her to real prison time. And those women who have been jailed claim to have been tortured. And we know that the guardianship rule very much is still in place, despite news outlets reporting that it's been gotten rid of and, you know, here's the fucking whole new world for women in Saudi Arabia. Because in 2019, it was discovered that a Saudi app called Absher which allows men in Saudi Arabia to track women so basically like a fucking find my female app was being sold through the Apple app store so it's not like some secretive thing it's a fucking mainstream thing that is being sold on the bloody app store was available for men to keep track of these women. And I also

watched a mini like Vice documentary that I'll link below with these two girls who in 2020, so this is after Jamal happened, this is after, you know, this royal decree saying that guardianship laws were being lifted, etc, had to run away from their family when they went on holiday to Turkey to try and escape them. They then went into hiding and were being supported by activists like monetarily. The family then found out where they were because the Saudi consulate and the Saudi government were basically able to track them and send police there to try and arrest them. So this isn't just like a family matter. If women quote unquote go missing by just trying to escape a fucking dictatorial system in their own household, the government, the state will get involved and find

these women and bring them home. And that's still happening now. So don't be lured in by the stories that the guardianship rule has been lifted or it's gone away. It absolutely hasn't. So really, Mohammed bin Salman hasn't changed that much. And with all the PR he got, even from the likes of like the New York Times fucking swooning over him, he has managed to usurp the work of amazing pioneering female feminist activists in Saudi Arabia who have worked tirelessly for years for gender equality at huge personal risk. And most of you have probably heard of and seen especially the case of Lujain Al-Falol, who is currently in prison after being sentenced to nearly six years in prison in December 2020. And she was sentenced because she was fighting for the right to allow

women to drive and also to end male guardianship. If those two things don't exist anymore, you might wonder why Lou Jane was sentenced to prison time in December 2020, so literally a fucking month ago. So how is it over? Lou Jane, I would definitely urge you guys to go and check out some of the interviews she's done on YouTube. She was arrested in October 2013 for the first time when she videoed herself driving in a car and posted it on YouTube. She was obviously arrested for driving as a woman, and then it was changed to inciting public opinion, and then it was changed to terrorism. I mean, fucking hell, for driving a car in 2013, they were trying to charge her with terrorism. And one more thing about Lou Jane.

Her husband is the comedian who wrote that satirical song, No Woman, No Drive, which is very funny. And if you haven't seen it, you guys should all go watch it on YouTube. Oh, that is extremely funny. Also, one of the things that this year I'm committed to doing is reading more work by feminist women of colour from around the world. And Dr. Mona El-Thaoui, who I would absolutely recommend following, put it really well when she said, we must stop pretending like it's not that bad, like the oppression of women in the Middle East is not that bad, because it is that bad. The gender inequality, the basic lack of freedom, the discrimination and the violence is unbearable and it comes from the top.

But just PR stunts like that of Mohammed bin Salman and weak legislative changes like he's done will do nothing. Women, whether it's in the Middle East, in Asia or wherever, don't know and won't know true liberation and freedom until it enters the home. I think that's a really interesting point to pause on for a second and just think about all the time. I think in the West, we are very quick to be like, oh, it's just a cultural difference. But cultural relativism only takes us so far. There has to be a line somewhere. And for me, one of those lines is FGM I am never ever ever going to be okay with that you can come to me with any cultural explanation you like I'm not having it

I completely agree and actually Dr Mona says something very similar I watched a head-to-head debate it's called head-to-head there's like a series that Al Jazeera put out that's all over YouTube you guys can go watch it and she a very, very provocative piece that was published in Foreign Policy Magazine in the US. It went viral. The Saudi royals obviously read it. She was getting death threats. She is an Egyptian-American journalist, and she was actually sexually assaulted by the Egyptian police when she was at a protest. It is horrendous what's happened to this woman, but she is incredible. She says in there, when she's doing this debate, somebody in the audience gave her an argument that she said she's heard time and time again, which is this idea that the royal family in Saudi also tries to push, which is stop trying to be

feminist activists and claiming that you speak for all women in the Middle East, because that's not what Arab women want. Arab women don't want to have to go to work. They don't want to have to drive themselves around. This is a Western mindset that you have been infected with and you're bringing it here and trying to change our cultural norms. Fucking bullshit. And this is what Mona said. If you want to live that way, then that's your fucking right to do that. But you don't need legislation to allow you to live that way. I am speaking for myself and what I want and the power that I demand and the freedom that I demand. And also for all those women who aren't in a position of privilege to say that they don't want to go to work and that they don't want to

drive themselves, who don't have a voice. And for us to have the freedom we want, we do need legislative and cultural change. So I think trying to push it under the carpet and say it's just a Western mindset. No, it's demanding basic freedoms that women deserve to have and can only have if they are allowed to, unfortunately. Yeah. Hail Queen Mona. Oh my God. Lover. Back to bad men. Mohammed bin Salman said that he was going to change it all. And it seemed like everybody in the entire world believed him. He began announcing big changes, like a brand spanking new long-term economic plan for Saudi Arabia. And he called that Vision 2030, which sounds like a brand of sunglasses. Or you know what it is? It sounds like an EDM festival on a beach in Croatia. Sponsored by laser eye surgery.

Exactly. Prince Mohammed said that the aim of Vision 2030 was to remove Saudi Arabia's economic dependence on oil, which is a very sensible thing to do because the dead dinosaurs, as we all know, are running out. He is even planning on building a $500 billion megacity that will be fuelled entirely by green energy. Which is a PR stunt if I've ever fucking seen one.

Over the years, the Crown Prince became almost like the Darling of the West. He'd made headlines by calling for a return to, quote, a more moderate Islam and vowing to end extremist terrorism. Which is possibly just the most ironic thing you might ever hear on this show ever. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia wants to put an end to extremist terrorism. Okay, we don't have time to go into why that is such a big issue today, but maybe we'll cover it in a future topic. Just know that it is ironic and not a non-morbid form of irony either. Prince Mohammed has also been massively transforming entertainment in Saudi Arabia. There has been a 35-year ban on cinema in the country. That was lifted. And by 2030, Prince Mohammed has even promised there will be 300 theatres in Saudi Arabia. And where before it had been illegal to even play music on the street,

there are now musicals, festivals, concerts, and even monster truck rallies kicking off all across the kingdom. I can't think of anything more Western than a monster truck rally. Yep, just like hanging out in the desert, watching a monster truck rally, eating a hot dog, blaming women for having a Western mindset to demand freedom. Yeah, drinking a Bud Light. What you need to know, dear intelligent listener,

because you're not fooled, I know you're not, what you need to know is that Prince Mohammed is all about the image. He loves a glitzy interview where he can sell the world and specifically the West on the idea of him as a reformist hero and that this is the dawn of the new Saudi Arabia. But as we have already alluded to, all of this talk of reform feels a lot more like a PR stunt and a smokescreen than a drive for real change. Because his reforms have all ultimately been about social and economic change in Saudi Arabia. But politically, he wasn't about to change shit.

And this is what we mean when we say that the social reforms were just a smokescreen. Because the 34-year-old crown prince's rise to the top has been against the backdrop of an unprecedented power grab. Essentially, Mohammed bin Salman's plan is to distract the proles with cinemas and the like, while he consolidates power and even more wealth for himself. To further cement his image as the reformer-in-chief, Prince Mohammed carried out a very public anti-corruption purge in 2017. Eleven Saudi princes, so this is his own family, were arrested, detained and tortured for having stolen from the state. With this move, Prince Mohammed again made headlines

for coming down hard on corruption. But really, it was again just a Game of Thrones-style way for him to garner more power for himself. Crown Prince Mohammed now controls the three key pillars of Saudi Arabia's security apparatus, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of the Interior, and the National Guard. The reason this is so unprecedented is because no Saudi ruler has ever controlled all of this before. This has never happened. So he's just like distracting everybody with all this like fucking monster truck rally bullshit while behind the scenes, he's just detaining, killing, doing whatever to anybody who gets in his way and controlling and consolidating all

the power for himself. Which, interestingly, is exactly what Kim Jong-un is doing in North Korea. Because, obviously, obsessed, obsessed with North Korea. Kim Jong-un is not the actual heir. Kim Jong-nam is. Kim Jong-nam, as you will know, if you have a television, assassinated. He's actually the eldest son of Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un's father. They have different mothers.

So in the sort of lineage way things should be done, it should have been Kim Jong-nam. But Kim Jong-un's mum was a little bit more forceful and Kim Jong-nam lived separately from Kim Jong-un. And also politically was not that bothered in his later life. There's video footage of him saying like, I don't believe in the dynasty. Like, I don't think it should be handed down generation to generation. But also, you would say that if you've been usurped, wouldn't you? That's true. That's true. That's exactly what I would say.

If your spot had been taken by your half-brother who you've, like, barely met once, who definitely is younger than you and it should have been you. Anyway, so because there is this question of Kim Jong-un's legitimacy to the throne, essentially, in North Korea. Sorry, the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea. He has had to do the same thing, which is entertain the elites. And like, you can do yoga in North Korea now. You were never allowed to do that before. So he's loosening all of these things for the people who have managed to scrape a penny together in North Korea, which is basically impossible. And also, he's destabilized everyone by creating this atmosphere of absolute

terror by killing people like indiscriminately. And he's not doing that because he's mad. He's doing that because he needs people to be terrified all the time. Otherwise, his rule isn't going to work because of this question around his legitimacy as a ruler. Absolutely. Which is very interesting. It's kind of like domestic abuse on a grand scale, isn't it? That's why like domestic abuse is like intimate terrorism. And that's what this is like. The reason you grand scale, isn't it? That's why domestic abuse is like intimate terrorism. And that's what this is like.

The reason you behave that way isn't because the abuser is crazy. And then they're not doing it because they're out of control. They're doing it because they are in complete control and they want to have complete control. Because when people are scared, they don't think about how to escape. They're just thinking about how to stay alive. Totally. And he's also, we're probably not perceiving him to do this very well, but he is trying to change the image of North Korea because there is no way Kim Jong-il

would have shaken the president of America's hand. No way. But Kim Jong-un did. So we can't overlook things like that. Definitely. Let's bounce from East Asia back to the Middle East. While all of this Ministry of Defence, Ministry of the Interior and National Guard seizing was going on behind closed doors during the first few years of Prince Mohammed's prominence, he was courted by the likes of Macron, Cameron, Obama and Trumpety Trumperpants. What a relief, they thought. Possibly at first. A more moderate leader in Saudi Arabia, that's going to make it much easier to get our grubby

little hands on all of that delicious oil and slurp it through a gold-plated straw. Exactly. But unfortunately for them, it is, of course, total bullshit. Four times as many people applied for asylum in Saudi Arabia in 2019 than had done in 2012. And that is because of Prince Mohammed, who essentially now runs the kingdom. He's massively stamped down on political expression and dissenting voices. More than ever in Saudi Arabia, activists, clerics, journalists and intellectuals who criticise the regime have been thrown in prison. And despite Crown Prince Mohammed's public commitment to reducing the number of executions, a report by

Amnesty International found that Saudi Arabia put 184 people to death in 2019, the highest number ever recorded in a single year in the country. So he's not as liberal as everyone is making out. It's all a big song and dance for the people in the worst. And when we talk about executions in Saudi Arabia, they're savage, absolutely savage. We're talking about beheadings with a sword and legitimate crucifixions are still happening. And they're actually the most popular forms of capital punishment. And did you know that when you are crucified, you die by suffocation? Yeah, like your body just can't hold its weight up anymore and you just fucking suffocate when your neck and your head smash into your chest. Your diaphragm can't support itself,

so your lungs can't inflate. So if you're taking too long to die, they'll break your legs. So you can't support your diaphragm even more. Oh my fucking god. When we were writing this up and I had to write the word crucifixion, I actually just felt chills run through my body. Like the idea that that still happens. I just can't, I can't get over it. I don't know what to say. It is barbaric. And also like how stupid is everyone who's taken in by this like, oh, the new fresh Saudi Arabia, we have music festivals now. Don't look at the crucifixions. Like you can't have it both ways. It's so tough, though, because I feel like we'll go on to see the Saudi regime controls the narrative, controls the media, controls social media. So people have like no fucking clue what's

going on, like ordinary people have no clue what's going on. So they're just told this person is an enemy of the state. That's why this horrendous thing is happening. And they're like, oh, well, this person clearly deserves it because that's what we're. And they're like, oh, well, this person clearly deserves it because that's what we're being told. So like, okay, I'm just going to go to this monster truck rally and pretend this isn't happening. Torture is still very much commonplace. But, you know, we can say that about a lot of countries.

Also something truly horrific, which I had never even contemplated until today, a practice called cross-amputation. And cross-amputation is where they'll cut off your right hand and your left foot. And that's used to punish crimes like robbery. Most of the executions and the torturings and the chopping-offs are carried out in public. And there's actually a place you can go to,

an official place you can go to, if you would like to watch any of these activities. And it's called Chop Chop Square. And there is actually a documentary on Netflix. And the name of the documentary I have forgotten, but I will leave it in the sources for this particular episode so you guys can go check it out. They talk a lot about the kind of executions and what's going on there with that. And the journalist sneaks into Chop Chop Square, right? Fucking hell, Hannah. The floor has got drains built into it like a fucking

wet room for all the blood to drain away. That's literally like something out of Game of Thrones. It is unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And Prince Mohammed isn't just continuing to oppress people at home. He's also leading the charge on the war in Yemen. The war in Yemen has been raging for years and I feel like we hear absolutely nothing about this. When was the last time you turned on the news and saw anybody even say the words Yemen? I, like, honestly couldn't tell you.

It's literally that episode of Friends where Chandler gets on a plane to get away from Janice and he's just next to a lady in a full nookab and he's like, when we get to Yemen, can I live with you? That's literally the only reference to Yemen I can think of in popular culture or the news at all. What was that film about fishing? Was there a Ewan McGregor film about fishing that has Yemen in the title? Salmon Fishing in the Yemen? Pass, don't know. Next question.

So, yes, there is, if you aren't aware, which I'm sure you are, wonderful listeners, because you are very intelligent people, there has been a war raging in Yemen for absolutely years and it is hell. There is no other word to describe what is currently going on there. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people have died and die every day. In air raids, millions of Yemenis are dying of starvation and of preventable diseases like cholera in 2021. And all the while, Saudi-led forces have blocked off routes for humanitarian aid to even reach the people. And guess who's selling the Saudi regime arms to commit genocide in Yemen?

That's us. That's us. Yes, we are. We are doing that. Personally, us, the hosts of Red Handed are funding the genocide in Yemen. Yes, that's where your Patreon money is going. Kind of because we pay our taxes to the government and then they decide that we're going to spend that money on a massive defence budget and then they decide that we're gonna spend that money on a massive defense budget and then sell loads of our fucking arms to Saudi Arabia because that's cool you know so yeah why are Saudi Arabia at war in Yemen we don't have time to go into it in its entirety but it is important to understand it in a nutshell for this episode so Saudi Arabia is at war in Yemen to dismantle Iran's shia control in the region. So when we talk about the region, we mean the Arab world, the Middle East.

The Sunni House of Saud, so that is the royal family in Saudi Arabia, has grand plans for the Middle East. They believe that it is their birthright to lead the Islamic world by any means possible. And that means that they need to weaken Iran and Turkey and anyone else who might try and take on that role instead. And like I said, seeing as today's case plays out in Istanbul, this little fact between why Saudi Arabia feels a certain type of way about Turkey is important to remember. Now that we better understand the Saudi regime and what we're dealing with, let's talk about Jamal Khashoggi. Jamal was born in Medina, Saudi Arabia in 1958. Then he went to the US to study at Indiana State University. And after graduating, he returned to Saudi Arabia to work as a journalist. For most of his life in his career,

Khashoggi had been a long-term supporter of the crown in Saudi Arabia. He had in fact been in the inner circle of the Saudi royals for over 30 years and had an accomplished career as a journalist and editor. The media in Saudi Arabia is extremely controlled, no surprises there, by the Saudi royal family. So as Jamal grew in journalistic prominence, he also grew closer to the ruling family. But when Crown Prince Mohammed rose to power, all of that changed. Despite Jamal's ties to the royals, he had always been a loud supporter of democracy. But he had started to feel increasingly uneasy about the way in which Saudi Arabia had worked to suppress the Arab Spring

uprisings. Jamal was also a strong critic of the Saudi kingdom's misinformation campaign of conspiracy theories to diminish the fact that 15 of the 19 9-11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Over the years, despite all of this, he had still managed to maintain a solid relationship with the royal family. And I think the important thing to remember here is that the Saudi royal family had always been an absolute monarchy. They had always consolidated power and wealth for themselves, but they hadn't cracked down as hard on dissidents or dissenting voices or critics as hard as we have seen since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman rose to power. That's very important to remember. And so in June 2017, after the current king named quote-unquote MBS as

his successor, Jamal left Saudi Arabia because the now Prince Mohammed banned him from writing, tweeting, speaking publicly or appearing on TV. Under Prince Mohammed, things were getting much worse, much more restrictive, and Jamal had started to fear for his life. From his self-imposed exile in the US, Jamal wrote in 2017, I am a believer in free journalism. Despite all the limitations we had, talking about the prior king in Saudi Arabia, I always pushed the envelope. I always wanted to have more space. And basically, I think that Jamal had coexisted with the previous rulers, even if he disagreed with them.

I think that he believed in changing a system from within through criticism and cooperation. But I think he realised quickly with Prince Mohammed that this wouldn't work anymore. So Jamal became a resident of the United States and in September 2017, he got a new job with the Washington Post. And this was a major sticking point for the Saudi regime. Jamal hadn't been that well-known in the West before. But now, here he was, criticising Crown Prince Mohammed in an American paper. His readership skyrocketed, as did the danger. And welcome to my second North Korean comparison. Kim Jong-nam, who is Kim Jong-un's older half-brother,

is not given the rulership of North Korea. He leaves, and where does he leave to? The only place he can go that has a goodhip of North Korea. He leaves. And where does he leave to? The only place he can go that has a good relationship with North Korea. He lives in China. And because of the Chinese relationship between North Korea's leaders and the Chinese government, like they're buddy-buddy pow-pows, there's not really anything North Korea can do to Kim Jong-nam while he's in China. But Kim Jong-nam took his kids to Disneyland in Japan, which for the North Korean regime is probably the most embarrassing thing you could do because it does not get more American than Disneyland. It really doesn't. No, you're right. It does not get more capitalist. It does

not get more embarrassing. They get wind of Kim Jong-nam going to Disneyland. He goes under a fake passport to get into Japan. And it's so interesting how similar this case is. Obviously, Jamal is not related to the Saudi royal family, but he knows where their dirty laundry is. And I would imagine it's a similar idea. And if this is sounding interesting to you, I literally cannot recommend enough the new documentary that's called Assassins about the two women who assassinated, knowingly or not, you decide, Kim Jong-nam in Kuala Lumpur Airport. It is so good. It is so good. I don't know what I was expecting, but it is a fascinating watch. And we are going to interview the director who's called Ryan White. Also, his previous work is The Keepers, the Netflix documentary about the nuns. And we are going to be interviewing him initially on Patreon. So if you want a video of us speaking to him, you're going to have to be a Patreon friend.

And we will be releasing the audio in the next couple of weeks. So you can stick around for that. But I'm genuinely so excited. I learned so many things. It's so similar. And actually, another way in which is very similar, which we'll come on to talk about very shortly, is how both of them were doing something nice for somebody they loved. And that's why they went to a place they shouldn't have gone, which is what ended up with them being murdered, which is very sad. Prince Mohammed, in his twinkly new image, spent millions of dollars on PR in America. And soon, just a 500-word article by Jamal would undo all of that work and all of that money.

Jamal railed against the prince. For all the Saudi journalists and activists he had imprisoned, he likened him to Putin and he called him a despot. The articles went on and on and on. And what we have to understand is that there were and are other people like Jamal writing about what was happening in Saudi Arabia. But Jamal was different. He was the perfect storm.

Jamal had been a palace insider for 30 years. He knew the regime and he was a journalist. And now he was with an influential American paper. Another really interesting thing about Kim Jong-nam, which there's footage of him talking to camera in the Assassin's documentary, perfect English, which I don't know why that surprised me, because obviously he went to international schools and like all of that sort of stuff. But he like slightly Americanized accent and says like,

it's my life, man. Like stuff like that, like really colloquial in his English. Fascinating. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either

until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide

for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained.

Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy

and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. So Jamal's running his mouth in all sorts of papers, mainly the Washington Post,

and the Saudi regime knew that they needed to silence him for good. So they tried to tempt him to return to Saudi Arabia on numerous occasions. They even offered him his own media network back in Riyadh. He just had to come home. But of course, Jamal knew better. And during his time outside of Saudi Arabia, Jamal began to meet with activists, those who were on the front lines fighting against the Saudi regime. One such man was Omar Abdulaziz. He had fled Saudi Arabia and was now living in Canada.

He told Jamal all about how the Saudi state controls the narrative completely on social media. And he told Jamal about the flies. The flies were the hundreds of thousands of trolls hired by the state in Saudi Arabia to suppress dissent on online platforms like Twitter. So think like Russian bots. That's exactly what this is. But the Saudis are more concerned, rather than with trolling people you know, people externally,

with trolling their own people and controlling dissenting voices from within. So these flies would basically sit there and relentlessly attack critics on social media and start smear campaigns until the voices of the critics were either completely drowned out or their reputations were destroyed. Omar told Jamal that he wanted to start his own network called The Bees. These bees would be ordinary people in Saudi Arabia, young people like him, who wanted to fight back. They would be given burner phones with foreign sims

and they would attack the flies and boost the voices of the critics so that other ordinary people would stand a chance of seeing what was really going on and what was really being said. Jamal worked with Omar and even donated $5,000 of his own money to help him set up this network. In fact, on the 21st of September, just 11 days before he was savagely murdered, Jamal publicly declared his support for the bees movement

using the Bee Army's very first hashtag. Hashtag, what do you know about the bees movement using the bee army's very first hashtag. Hashtag, what do you know about the bees? Jamal was also working to translate external publications and articles which revealed the true economic situation in Saudi Arabia so that ordinary people back home could read it and see. He also worked with activists to create a foundation to bring democracy to the Arab world by inspiring young people. It's hard to know what else Jamal was doing, because other activists have said that he was involved with their work,

but they don't want to expose their plans by speaking out now. Whatever the case, it's clear that Jamal was growing in confidence and escalating his critiques of the Saudi royals, and thereby putting a huge target on his back. He knew it would never be safe for him to return home and he also feared being abducted and forcibly taken to Riyadh to be imprisoned. And so Jamal was always extremely careful. He even told Omar, who was constantly being contacted by Saudi intelligence services, never to meet them in private. When Jamal left Saudi Arabia, he didn't just leave his home country.

He also had to leave behind his wife and four children. And his wife actually divorced him in 2017, soon after he left. It is strongly suspected that she was forced into doing this by the regime. But whatever the reason, there's just no chance of reconciliation. And Jamal knew this, and he knew that he had to move on. And so in May 2018, at a conference, he met a Turkish scholar, Hedija Cengiz. She interviewed Jamal and the two fell in love. That summer, he proposed and they were related.

All of Jamal's friends who had seen him for years going through the strife that the Saudi family had caused him said that he seemed like he was suddenly 10 years younger. Finally, Jamal's life seemed full of hope again, and his adult children were even able to visit him now in Istanbul. And given that that was also where Khadija lived, Jamal bought a flat there. The couple wanted to get married as quickly as possible so they could move in together, but there was a hurdle. In Turkey, if a foreigner wants to marry a Turkish national, they have to provide a civil document from their own home country proving that they're not already married.

So Jamal would have to get this from the Saudi government. The pair went from agency to agency trying to see if it was possible to get the document from somewhere else. But again and again, they were told that there was just no other way. And so, on the 28th of September, Jamal and Khadija went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. They wouldn't let Khadija in as she wasn't Saudi or Jamal's wife. So, Jamal told her it would be fine and went inside alone. He eventually came out 45 minutes later, and Jamal was pleasantly surprised. It had all been fine. They treated him well and promised to prepare the documents.

They told him to come back in five days. And so Jamal, now not worried at all, left for London for work. And so on the 2nd of October 2018, Jamal returned to Istanbul. He met up with Khadija, they had breakfast together in a local cafe near their new flat and discussed their upcoming wedding. Jamal then got a call from the Saudi consulate saying that his documents were ready and that he should come by at 1.30 that afternoon. And so at 1.14pm on Tuesday, the 2nd of October, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi left his fiancée, Khadija, waiting nervously outside the Saudi consulate and disappeared inside. There was no way she could have known at the time, but that was the last time Khadija would

ever see Jamal again. And that piece of footage of Jamal walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is of course now infamous and it's all over the internet. And I think watching it now, knowing what would happen to him just minutes later, is chilling to say the least. After three hours of waiting outside, there was still no sign of Jamal. Khadija started to worry. She went to the entrance and spoke to the guard, but he just said that there was no one inside. So Khadija called the consulate, but they hung up on her. And then a man came to the door again to tell her that no one was inside, so there was no point waiting. Khadija's legs began to tremble and she called Yasan Akte. Yasan was a Turkish presidential advisor and also Jamal's friend.

Yasin called all of Jamal's other friends and Turkish intelligence as well as the Saudi ambassador. The Saudi ambassador never called Yasin back, but Turkish intelligence were all over it, as were the media and Jamal's friends. Hedija and Jamal's friends turned up at the Saudi consulate every day for the next three days. They were sure that Jamal's friends. Khadija and Jamal's friends turned up at the Saudi consulate every day for the next three days. They were sure that Jamal was either inside being held captive or that he'd been abducted and put on a private jet back to Saudi Arabia. Turkish intelligence was highly concerned and by 6pm on the 2nd of October, so within hours of Jamal's vanishing, they had already discovered that two private planes had flown into Istanbul on Monday the 1st of October and Tuesday the 2nd of October.

Unbelievably, one of these private jets had just left Turkey without being searched. But Turkish intelligence managed to search the second plane, but they didn't find anything. Meanwhile, Riyadh was still maintaining its story, saying that Jamal had left the Saudi consulate just an hour or so after and they had absolutely no idea where he was now. But no one was buying it. The following day, the 3rd of October, Turkish intelligence started a full-on search of all CCTV around the consulate and the local airports.

There was no sign of Jamal having ever left the consulate or the country. On the 4th of October, Riyadh put out public reports saying that they too were concerned about Jamal's whereabouts and his safety and that they too were looking for him. On the 5th of October, Prince Mohammed made his first comment on the incident and said that Jamal wasn't inside the consulate and that he wasn't in Saudi Arabia because, if he was, he as the crown prince would know about it.

Fears for Jamal's safety only continued to grow. Turkish intelligence discovered that the two private jets that had arrived on the 1st and the 2nd of October, so remember that's the day before Jamal's disappearance and the day of, had been carrying 15 men from Riyadh, all of whom were very close to Mohammed bin Salman and had actually been a part of his inner circle. So basically, this is the important thing to remember.

These men that we're going to go on to talk about are incredibly close to the crown prince. The crown prince is essentially the ruler of Saudi Arabia and they have used state resources in the shape of two private jets to fly from Riyadh to Istanbul. It's just unbelievable that Riyadh is saying they have no clue about all of this. Like, it just makes zero sense. And three men out of these 15 stood out in particular to Turkish intelligence.

A man named Mahat al-Mutreb, a very senior ranking officer from Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Abdul al-Muzani, head of Saudi intelligence who's usually based in Istanbul, and Dr. Salah al-Tubagi, a very prominent Saudi forensic doctor. The private plane carrying these three men was the one that had arrived on the 2nd of October and left by 6pm the same day without being searched. And the fact that they basically spent just 10 hours in Istanbul seemed odd, considering that their visas said that they were there for tourist purposes and the hotel that they had checked into had reservations there for them for four days.

Turkish intelligence knew that they needed to track the movements of these 15 men from the moment they arrived in Istanbul to the moment they left. After the plane had landed on the 1st of October 2018, the individuals who arrived went to their hotels. And then, Ahmed Abdullah Almazani, head of Saudi intelligence, normally based in Istanbul, was seen using the Saudi consul's car to go on a trip to Belgrade Forest. It wasn't a quick hiking trip. He wasn't just trying to fit in some outdoorsy time. It looked a lot wasn't a quick hiking trip. He wasn't just trying to fit in some outdoorsy time. It looked a lot more like a reconnaissance mission. The rest of the men arrived and they spread themselves over two local hotels. On the 2nd of October, all 15 men were at

the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by 10am. At 1.14pm, Jamal walked in. He went straight into the consul's office, where Matreb, the Saudi intelligence officer, was waiting for him. And what we're about to tell you comes from transcripts of recordings Turkish intelligence have produced. They say that they had the Saudi consul bugged. And while the recordings have not been publicly released, as Turkey say that they want to keep them to continue their legal fight, the transcripts are out there.

The recordings have also been heard by the CIA and the UN, and they have been deemed to be real. In these recordings, as far as the transcripts go, this is what happens. Mutreb says to Jamal that they are there to take him back to Riyadh under the direct instructions of Interpol, to which Jamal replied, there are no lawsuits against me. My fiancé is waiting outside.

Then a fight can be heard. Then Jamal is injected with a sedative and then suffocated with a plastic bag. And we know this because the men killing him are saying it out fucking loud. Like they're fucking narrating what's going on. It's the weirdest thing thing and then Jamal's last words before losing consciousness were I have asthma do not do it you'll suffocate me

before it sounds like a hand goes over his mouth because then it just sounds incredibly muffled and then he's just silent within seven minutes of entering consulate, Jamal Khashoggi was dead. There was then a conversation between the assassination team, who by this point were all in the room. Voices can also be heard talking about cleaning the place and clearing all of the CCTV. Then at 1.39pm, the sound of a saw can be heard dismembering Jamal's body. And this process went on for 30 minutes. After this, one of the men is heard saying, it's scary to be wearing the clothes of a man who died 20 minutes ago. It would later be discovered that one of the team was dressed up in Jamal's clothes and told to walk the streets

of Istanbul as a decoy for CCTV. And yeah, all right, he kind of looks like Jamal, but it's not exactly a genius plan. And also, Jamal's shoes apparently didn't fit this lookalike because, once again, this can be heard in the recordings and it's in the transcript. So he complains about this and eventually they allow him to wear his own very fucking obviously different shoes on his city walkabout. He's then spotted by CCTV walking into a public toilet wearing Jamal's clothes and then walking out of the public toilet wearing his own clothes and then going back to his hotel.

Oh my God. It really makes you wonder how difficult it is to become a Saudi spy, doesn't it? Honestly, it's a fucking joke. And this thing, they're stupid. They're incredibly stupid, like the decisions that they make. But I do wonder if it's a lack of planning, because this is very well planned, as we'll go on to see. Or it's just a total disregard for the law.

Like they genuinely feel like they are above the law and they can do what they want. They're not even in their own country. And this is how they behave. At 3.08, CCTV showed several cars leaving the Saudi consulate headed in different directions. Two of these cars went straight to the Saudi consul's house, while the other cars went to the men's hotels and then to the airport. The two cars that went to the consul's house stayed parked in the garage there for three days. Then they were all taken for a full clean and car wash. When the men in these two cars had arrived at the consul's house CCTV showed them unloading several large suitcases and taking them inside. This is weird because their stuff was all still

in their hotel rooms and we know this because after their stop at the consul's house, the men went to their hotels, packed up their stuff and went to the airport. Turkish intelligence also discovered that some of the group who had landed on the 1st of October had gone to a local market and bought 20 large suitcases, the same ones now being moved into the Saudi consul's house. And the fact that the first plane left without being searched is a huge source of frustration in this case, because CCTV from the airport showed some very unusual behaviour. Essentially, like, there is a documentary out there, there are actually tons of documentaries out there that you can watch on this case. There is one that is coming out in the UK and the rest of the world, I believe on the 3rd of March, but it is already out in the US. I did watch it with a VPN so you

can have a go at that. It's called Dissident and it is about, obviously, about Jamal Khashoggi. And in that and some of the other documentaries, they the cctv of this van right it's a black saudi owned console van and it comes so fucking close to the private jet it looks like but you can't see it from the cctv angle like they're unloading something very secretly off the van and onto the plane it's weird so after they see the cctv the turkish intelligence services are obviously super pissed that they weren't able to search the plane because was the van carrying Jamal's body? Had they loaded it onto that first private plane and flown it back to Riyadh and out of the country

so that the Turkish will never ever know what actually happened? Jamal's body parts, if they did dismember him like it sounds like in the recordings, could also have been smuggled out in bags. Some of these men were carrying diplomatic bags that wouldn't have been searched at the airport. And while there is no concrete evidence, Turkish intelligence do believe that Jamal's head, at least, was taken out of the country.

This is because a very senior royal aide, a man named Saud al-Qahtani, is reported to have said to the assassination team during a Skype call to the consulate in Istanbul, quote, bring me the head of the dog. Wow. Don't say anything on Skype is the lesson

that we need to take from that. What is the logic behind not searching a diplomat's bag? What? What? So diplomatic immunity is given to protect ambassadors and diplomats from essentially being taken prisoner or tortured or just generally fucked about with when they're abroad and trying to just do like their diplomatic business. Because a hostile country, for example,

might want to imprison a diplomat to gain leverage or punish another country. And so they try and use that diplomat as a pawn or they might even take the diplomat to torture them and try and extract like secret information from that diplomat. So if you say in blanket terms, a diplomat has near total immunity, then it makes it harder for another country to cook up like fake charges and chuck that diplomat or the ambassador in a detention centre. And diplomatic bags are really interesting because they're not searched or even scanned at airports. Again, this is allegedly to give the diplomats protection. And I say allegedly because I do get that,

obviously, to an extent. It's so that they can't just slip something in your bag and then arrest the diplomat falsely. But I also do think that this kind of tradition holds because all countries benefit from this rule. So no one is really incentivized to try and challenge it. Does that make sense? Like, as in why they're not searching diplomatic bags and why this was a big red flag in this case? Yeah, okay. yeah, I understand that because like I was also, for a bit I was like, but why can't you just search their bag? But obviously if you find a brick of coke in the bag, like you can't charge them with it, so what's the point? Like I sort of understand, yeah, and you can't confiscate it. I understand, I think it's dumb,

but I obviously am not a diplomat. So where's the rest of Jamal's body? Again, there's very little concrete evidence to answer that question, but Turkish intelligence believe that his remains were either dumped in Belgrade forest because of the couple of cars that took a detour there an hour after Jamal's death before they headed to the men's hotels, or perhaps the rest of Jamal has been disposed in the Saudi consul's house given the numerous inexplicable suitcases that men unloaded there. As Turkey ramped up its investigation, international pressure also began to build.

Five days later, after Jamal vanished, was the first time that those outside of Turkish intelligence began to suspect that he was in fact dead. At this point, Riyadh was still saying that they had no idea where he was and a diplomatic row had erupted between Turkey and Saudi. Turkey demanded that the Saudis hand over the hit squad and that Prince Mohammed admit the truth, that he had ordered the killing. But Riyadh refused.

And so the news exploded. And the story was kept in the headlines thanks to the almost daily leaks from Turkish intelligence itself. Details of what happened on the 2nd of October inside the Saudi consulate were drip-fed by Turkish officials to newspapers and news outlets all over the world. They were narrating the story like a juicy crime drama box set, and the world was hooked. A journalist who was a US resident and writing for the Washington Post had been murdered and had had his body most likely chopped into pieces with a bone saw and then disappeared to a secretive desert kingdom on a private plane. This story was just not going to go away any time soon.

And what was really smart of Turkish intelligence was their leaking to international media. Because once they picked up the story, it became an international issue. It wasn't just one now contained to Turkey versus Saudi Arabia. It became a global point of contention. It was also at this point that Turkey sent the recording of Jamal's murder to the CIA.

And despite the then President Donald Trump downplaying his mate Mohammed bin Salman's involvement, the CIA and the US Senate unequivocally accused the Crown Prince of being behind the killing. Saudi Arabia had made a huge mistake. They'd got it wrong. They thought that Turkey would never be able to come after them. But Turkey was relentless. And eventually, on the 15th of October 2018, so that's 13 days after Jamal disappeared, Turkish investigators were finally allowed into the consulate and into the Saudi consul's house. Do you know where the North Korean embassy is in London? No. It's in a semi-detached house in Ealing.

Isn't that great? That's amazing. That's great. If you are in Ealing, please go and take a picture of it and send it to me. But don't get captured. In the almost two weeks that had passed since Jamal had disappeared, a Saudi team had arrived at the consul clearly to clean up the murder and hide the evidence. And how do we know that? Well, why else would a team of forensic experts, chemical engineers and toxicologists from Riyadh have visited the consulate repeatedly between the 12th

and 14th of October? Some kind of conference, perhaps? Perhaps. Inside the Saudi consulate, there's just a little forensics conference taking place in the two weeks between when a journalist vanished there that was clearly murdered. And then the day after, they're like, oh, sorry. Sorry, Turkish officials. Would you like to come on in now? Come have a look what we've done with the place. You'll find it's very clean. We've just been doing some on the job training.

And I think you'll find that we've done a really great job of cleaning up this murder scene because as you can see it is now just a consulate office. But also kind of not because come have a look. Oh is that luminol? Oh whoops. You can lick the floor, eat your dinner, off the chair. Actually here's the plastic bag that we used to strangle him you can take it back now. Turkish investigators noticed that the walls of the consulate office where the recordings suggesting Jamal had been killed and dismembered had been freshly painted and when they removed the paint the forensics team hadn't done that greater job because they found Jamal's blood on the walls. It's like they couldn't be bothered to clean it up they were just like just

paint over it that'd be fine stick some paint up. Do you think they just spent those fucking two weeks picking paint colours? Like at least painted something new. Yes, maybe. Maybe. At the Saudi consul's house, Turkish investigators made another interesting discovery, a brand new huge oven in the consul's garden. Records show that it had been built in the months leading up to Jamal's murder. In fact, planning for this giant oven had started right around the time that Jamal had first started coming to Istanbul for Khadija. I listened to an interview with the man who actually built the oven and he said that he

had been told that it was going to be used to roast whole lambs. But he also said that he was surprised and confused when the Saudi consul rejected his proposed plans for this oven. Apparently, they told him that it wasn't big enough or hot enough. The man had built hundreds of these outdoor ovens before and knew what he was doing and knew what was required. The consul apparently then came back to him with new dimensions and a new plan. The man was baffled, but he knew one thing. This oven wasn't going to be used to cook lamb. The oven was big enough to fit a fully grown human man inside and reach

temperatures of 1200 degrees Celsius. A normal oven like this would only go as far as 600. Obviously cooking a lamb didn't need that high of a heat, but cremating a body does. On the 20th of October 2018, five days after Turkish intelligence found the fresh paint and blood in the consulate, the Saudi government finally admitted that Jamal had been killed. But they said that it was a local man and that it had been a random killing because of a sudden argument. This obviously made no sense, and so the official story out of Riyadh was that this had been a rogue killing carried out by the 15 men in the consulate that day. And Prince Mohammed claimed that they had not been following his instructions. He said that he was furious, and while he wouldn't be extraditing the men,

he had started proceedings against them at home. He assured the world that there would be a trial and justice would be served. But he refused a UN-led international investigation, despite a Geneva statement signed by 36 countries calling on him to be more open. But why should Prince Mohammed care about that when these countries didn't back it up with sanctions? They still traded very freely with Saudi Arabia, so they clearly were not that bothered. In fact, Trump called the Saudi royals on numerous occasions praising them for their handling of their disappearance and the way they had worked with Turkey, despite what his own intelligence services were telling him. It does feel good to say former President Trump, though.

We'll say that. That's a nice feeling. So Prince Mohammed is basically like, all right, fair enough, they did it. But it was a rogue killing. I didn't order it. And I'm not going to extradite them back to Turkey or let anybody into our country to investigate, but I'll handle it. And he kind of has handled it. I mean, not really. That sounds like I'm giving him any sort of credit. What I mean is he covered his arse. Because in 2019, Saudi Arabia sentenced five of the 15 men from the hit squad to death and handed down lengthy jail terms to seven of the others. It was all, of course, however, a total farce. They only handed out these sentences because Prince Mohammed had to be seen to be doing something. And since no country in the world, the UK and the US included,

were going to demand that Mohammed be removed as the Crown Prince, given the instability that would likely cause in the Middle East and to all of that tasty oil, the kingdom realised that it had to sacrifice high up enough officials to placate the international community, especially Turkey. Because Turkey's strength as a sovereign nation and also Erdogan's strength and control as a leader had been challenged by the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. And I'm not here to bum Erdogan, because fuck that guy too. But like we said, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are intense rivals, with both wanting to grow their influence and leadership in the region. So Turkey wasn't just going to drop this murder,

not when they could fully leverage the toxicity Mohammed bin Salman had wrought upon himself and his regime. But if you're wondering just how much of a farce all this death sentence business was, well, massively, massively farcical is the answer. Because last year in September 2020, the death sentences of the hit squad were all overturned and the jail terms were also hugely reduced.

In the years since Jamal was murdered, there have been a few diplomatic visits from Saudi officials to try and smooth over the issue with Turkey. But Turkey are having none of it. Turkish prosecutors backed by the UN and the CIA have ruled that this was a deliberate, premeditated, extrajudicial killing that is in breach of international laws. So will anything happen to Prince Mohammed? Probably not. Not even probably not. Of course not. I can say with some confidence, definitely not. Yes, you're right. And like we said, the West has largely claimed that this is to avoid creating more instability in the Middle East. But things might change. The Biden administration, as of last week, so February 2021, has withdrawn U.S. support for the Saudis' war in Yemen,

branding it a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe. Biden has also pledged to release the full CIA report on their investigation into Jamal Khashoggi's murder and working with Turkish intelligence. Off the back of all of this, Boris Johnson is also now under pressure to do the same. But we shall have to wait and see what actually happens. And while no government has taken definitive action against Prince Mohammed, this has tainted his image hugely around the world. And as we all know, MBS's main concern is money, power and his image. Because from his image will come money and power. And essentially that has led to so many investors

pulling out left, right and centre from massive projects that would have seen billions pour into Saudi Arabia and therefore also into his own pockets. And also, with regards to the power structures, Turkey really used this murder to their advantage. Like we said earlier, there is a fight in the Middle East between who will take on the mantle of the leader of Islam, if you will, within that region. Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia fight have that control. But once again, this action has led to their loss of reputation to the extent that power structures in the Middle East are now shifting because of what happened to Jamal. Another scandal that damaged Prince Mohammed even further was when

it was discovered in 2020 that the Saudi prince had hacked the phone of none other than Jeff Bezos. Yes, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos. Jeff and MBS had big plans to work together and they were super fucking pally for a while. Of course they were. Anyone who's in that like upper echelon, super duper mega rich, they've all got each other's numbers. They all know each other. They've all probably got a secret social media app that we don't know about.

Definitely. And actually, if you watch Dissident, you will see like, I don't know if these pictures are real, but basically it's like Jeff Bezos has got Mohammed bin Salman's number saved in his phone as MBS. Like they're fucking buddies, right? But despite all the plans they had to work together, Jeff had actually started to distance himself from the Saudis after Jamal's murder because Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, the paper that Jamal worked for. again PR and was he still chatting to Mohamed on the side? Quite possibly because of what happened

next. Because it seems like in a bid to punish Bezos, Prince Mohamed hacked his phone and then leaked masses of private information regarding Jeff Bezos's divorce in 2019 to the National Enquirer. And they must have still been chatting because apparently the way in which this phone hacking works is that you send a text to the other person with a link in it that looks innocuous. That person clicks it. Boom. Your phone is now a recorder. It's a camera. It's tracking everything. They basically just cloned your phone. You're fucked. And when this phone hacking was explored further,

it was also discovered that Omar Abdulaziz's phone, so that is the activist who Jamal was working with who lived in Canada, his phone had also been hacked. And this would have revealed to the Saudis the true extent of Jamal's work with the activists. And this could have been the impetus that they had to kill him when they did. So that is the story of Jamal Khashoggi and his murder at the hands of the Saudi regime. It's a terrifying story on a grand geopolitical scale. The case of a journalist murdered by a dictatorial monarchy for daring to speak out, for having believed in democracy and wanting the best for his people and the next generation.

But it's also a tragic and heartbreaking story on a family scale. Jamal only went to the Saudi embassy that day so that he could get the papers he needed to marry Khadija. And for that, he paid the ultimate price and was murdered in such a brutal way. Today, Khadija is still fighting to get justice for Jamal. She has even been branded mentally unstable and crazy by the Saudi media, even called a Turkish spy. We obviously very much hope that she does get justice, but we also realise that it's very, very, very unlikely. So that's it, guys. We know that that was a lot to take in this week. It's a completely wild story and if you want to learn more about this, there are a tonne of documentaries out there.

But before you do that, maybe you want to take your mind off things a little bit. If that's the case, you should come hang out with us immediately after this on Under the Duvet, where we will be talking about who knows what, something, something that isn't maybe murder. We don't know. Whatever's going on in the world right now, we'll talk about that. Last week, for example, we spoke at length about the Marilyn Manson case, sorry, Brian Warner, as he shall be known on this podcast. So come check that out because Under the Duvet is out this week and every single week for all $5 and up patrons. And come and follow us on Instagram. One of our targets this year is 100,000 followers.

We're nearly at 60,000. If you don't follow us on Instagram, do that because it would be nice of you. And have you done anything nice today? Name one nice thing you've done today. Rectify that. Follow us on instagram absolutely and while it would be nice of you to do it'll also be nice for you because we post lots of things for the first time on social media like when we have new merch drops just pictures of us doing random things if that sounds like something you'd be interested in come follow us on all the social medias and also come check us out on patreon because you know there's stuff going on there and here are some lovely people who have signed up at some point so thank you very much ash courtney hobson casey

mass jessica mortens jessica collins ali miller kirsten ott candace and monica collier callie Thank you. Sir Hanson, Matricia, Patrice Lee, Suzanne Whiteman, Courtney Kelly, Jane McMillan, Kelly Grace, Tara Lieberman, Beverly Tipping, Mama Shark, Sophia Almedia, Zoe, Leila Wagner, Brooke Gobble, Tracy Riley, Amy Battles-Browski, Emma Hutton, Corrie-Anne R, Rohini Jahali, Juliet Isherwood, Susan Bennett, Kirsi Hebden, Tugsy Yilmaz, Sam Demme, Edith, Catherine Somerville, Bianca Bernhardt, Siobhan Yannikas, Courtney Davenport, Lex Nicky Kemp, Phoenix Fox, Miranda Wadham, Thank you. katherine ross ashley dearth cory desantis dellin ridker jillian manti rachel wilbur chelsea regal gabby kirsty o'neill katie allen lydia hicklin julie caplan nozalo alea lisa green aubrey bell hayley or hallie possibly i don't know dana owens kristin st martin annie gerard pierce Dana Owens, Kristen St. Martin, Annie Gerard-Pierce, Alice Jones, Brittany Baker, Sydney Thorpe, Anna M, Judith Hoffman, Siobhan Shields, Emma Rania Bellucci, Louise Nicholson, Jane Henry, Sharon Coates, Charlotte Adelaide Charbonnet, Sarah Kelsey Cole, Kiara Gray or Kira, Chantelle Bell, Yanni Yarnold, Lonnie Yarnold, sorry, I'm mixing up my letters. Krista, Robin Wakefield, Murphy, Erin, Juliana Davis, Sarah Abraham, Veronica Croker, Valentine Ash,ve, Macy, Caitlin Miller, Catherine, Caitlin Hoke,

Charlotte Gale, Clara Muzik, Kiki Kixmiller, Rachel Lewis-Oda, Erin, Elise Pantino, Joseph Wong, Jake Tilbury, Dawn Dazzo, and Laura Kay. Thank you ever so much for supporting the show. And we'll see all of you patrons right now in Under the Duvet. You're welcome. Come in.

It's warm. Bye. Goodbye. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space

aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+.

You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about.

Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace,

from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery+.