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Host (Thomas) (4:08)

As you can probably tell, I'm still battling a bad winter's cold. I'm over the worst of it, but poor Eamon. He's still laid low while he recovers, I thought it would be a good idea to re release an episode from back in season three. Spying for Saudi Saudi Arabia celebrated Founding Day on Sunday as they do every year on the 22nd of February. And in this episode we told the story of the beginnings of Saudi Arabia back in the 18th century. And Eamonn talked about the way Saudi history in the 20th century was interwoven with high stakes spycraft, including his insider explanation of of what really went down in the notorious murder of jamal Khashoggi in 2018. It's one of our best episodes, I think, worth listening to for sure, if you're one of our many tens of thousands of new listeners and worth re listening to if you've been a dear listener from the beginning. So without further ado, here's Conflicted spying for Saudi.

Eamon (5:26)

Hello, Eamon.

Ayman (5:27)

Hello, Thomas.

Eamon (5:28)

We've got a huge episode today, so I just want to get right into it. Is that okay?

Ayman (5:32)

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Eamon (5:33)

So in this series of Conflicted, we're exploring the various ways in which the idea of clash of civilizations can be used to understand Middle Eastern history and the conflicts which continue to rage across the region. As we said before, what we're trying to do isn't straightforward because civilization is a difficult world to define. But we're going to try. Having told the story of the end of America's quote unquote empire in the Middle east, we're going to tell the story of how that empire began and developed during the Cold War, starting in your homeland, Eamon. Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is, in a way, where the Cold War began. And to understand how, we'll explain how long standing British power in the region gave way fitfully to, and almost without anyone noticing, to American power. And we'll see how the Cold War world of spycraft, ideological conflict and state paranoia continues into the present through Eamon's take on the notorious murder of Jamal Khashoggi. What an episode, Eamon. My goodness.

Ayman (6:37)

Goodness, it's gonna ruffle lots of feather.

Eamon (7:05)

The story we're telling today about the origins of the Cold War in Saudi Arabia dovetails remarkably neatly with your own family's history. And that story starts with the British Empire. Now, Eamon, your paternal grandfather was born in Afghanistan and moved to British India, the Raj, and became an officer in the British Indian Army. He was sent to Iraq in 1915 as part of the UK's Mesopotamian Campaign, during which Britain grabbed Iraq from the Ottomans and incorporated it into the British Empire. Now, after the war in Iraq, he became a head of police, is that right?

Ayman (7:44)

Yeah, he was the head of police in Baghdad district then for the whole of Basra.

Eamon (7:49)

The whole of Basra in southern Iraq. Wow, that's quite a job. He must have got his hands dirty.

Ayman (7:55)

Absolutely. He was one of those responsible for the suppression of the 1920 rebellion. I don't know if I feel sorry about that or proud.

Eamon (8:04)

The 1920 Iraqi revolt. Now this was an uprising of Iraqi nationalists which was put down by the British, but it also encouraged the British to adopt indirect rule in Iraq, they installed a Hashemite as king, King Faisal bin Hussein. The Hashemites, of course, were the traditional rulers of the Hejaz along the west coast of the Arabian peninsula where Mecca and Medina are. And in fact, that King Faisal was whom Alec Guinness played in Lawrence of Arabia, very memorably, of course.

Ayman (8:38)

Absolutely.

Eamon (8:39)

So eventually your grandfather was invited by the ruler of Bahrain, which was then a British protectorate, to join the security services there. So, Aemon, the question is, does spycraft as well as working for foreign powers, run in your blood?

Ayman (8:54)

Oh, it runs in the family. Like my father did it, so was my grandfather. So yeah.

Eamon (9:00)

So it was in Bahrain that your father grew up. And in the early 1930s, after deciding to seek their fortune just across the water in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, he and his older brother, your uncle, caught the attention of a certain British spy.

Ayman (9:16)

That British spy is known to the English world, to the English speaking world, as St. John Philby.

Eamon (9:23)

St. John Philby. St John Philby.

Ayman (9:26)

St. John philby, very posh name. But to the Arabs and especially to the Saudi royal family and to King Abdelaziz himself, he was known as Shaykh Abdallah Filby.

Eamon (9:38)

Sheikh Abdullah Philby. Now, St. John Philby Abdullah Philby is a fascinating figure in the history of the later British Empire and the transition of that world order into the American led world order of the Cold war. His life, St John Philby's life mirrors your family's life, Eamon. He was also sent to Iraq during the First World War and after the war he became Minister of Internal Security in Iraq. Meaning he would have been your grandfather's boss.

Ayman (10:07)

Absolutely.

Eamon (10:08)

But just before that, during the Arab revolt which broke out during the war. Now, whereas the famous Lawrence of Arabia was the British agent most active in the Hejaz on the west, advocating the claims of the Sharif of Mecca to be the King of the Arabs, the Philby was sent to the Nejd, the central Arabian plateau, on a mission to the then Emir of the Nejd, Abdulaziz, known in the west as Ibn Saud, who was then a rising power in Arabia. Philby ended up becoming a staunch advocate of Abdulaziz, who had conquered the eastern province where you grew up, Ayman, only a few years before. Now explain how Arabians like yourself, who weren't from the Nejd, from the central Arabian plateau, where Riyadh is, where the House of Saud come from, how would Arabians like yourself have regarded Nejdis?

Ayman (10:58)

Well, if you remember, the Nejdis were always regarded by the rest of the population of Arabia as the noble warriors, somewhat nomadic, but also with some settlements that were regarded as the trading centers of Najd. So they were warriors and also there were merchants, but also there were religious missionaries, all at the same time. Merchants, warriors and religious missionaries.

Eamon (11:25)

Religious missionaries is a nice way of putting it. I mean, zealots, Wahhabi zealots, let's say.

Ayman (11:33)

So I wouldn't call them Wahhabis, you know, because basically I myself as a Salafist. So basically I'll call them a salafist.

Eamon (11:38)

Oh, I beg your pardon. Yes. Wahhabi is often regarded by Muslims themselves. Salafi, Muslims themselves. As a slur. I don't mean it as a slur, of course.

Ayman (11:46)

Yeah, yeah. But nonetheless, for many people, they were regarded as staunch religious fundamentalists. This is the best I can describe them. Also, they were warriors and at the same time with a mercantile bend to them. So that is why they were regarded as fearsome in both the east and the west of the Arabian peninsula. But nonetheless, these fears, you know, started to lessen a bit as King Abdulaziz adopted a more conciliatory tone towards both the east and the west of the Arabian peninsula.

Eamon (12:23)

So, yeah, the House of Saud, now, they have a very long history, but they really burst into history properly in the 18th century when they entered into a famous alliance with the Muslim reformer Muhammad IBN Abdul Wahhab, from whom the word Wahhabi comes. And they conquered at that time, much of the Arabian Peninsula and formed the first Saudi state. That's how it's known to Sch. That state was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1818, but only a few years later, the House of Saud had recovered and established a smaller but still impressive second Saudi state. Now, this second state suffered from internal divisions and was eventually conquered by a rival Arabian clan, allies of the Ottomans, the House of Rashid Abdulaziz, the king whom Sinjan Filby Abdullah Philbi was an advisor to and who founded the third Saudi state, the current kingdom of Saudi. Abdulaziz was then only 16 years old, and he went into exile to Kuwait with his family, where he nursed a powerful ambition to restore his royal house's fortunes. Now, this he did starting in 1902, reconquering first Riyadh and from there slowly extending his rule across the peninsula. Now, he just started his expansion when Philby met him in 1917. And it's important to point out that Philby was basically an intelligence operative. He actually became head of the secret service in Palestine during the Mandate where he would come to grief with the British and was eventually forced to resign on account of sending confidential information to Abdulaziz. He really, really respected Abdulaziz. He'd grown to believe that he was a great leader. And after his resignation, Philby ended up settling in Jeddah where he was living when Abdulaziz conquered the Hejaz, becoming its king in 1925. Philby grew then even closer to Abdulaziz, became one of his closest advisors, converted to Islam in 1930 and took the name Abdullah. Now, Phillibi argued strongly that Abdulaziz should unite all of his domains under his sole rule, which he did in 1932, proclaiming the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And that is the Saudi Arabia that we know today and in which you grew up. But your family knew St. John Philby, Abdullah Philby, is that right, Ayman?

Ayman (14:44)

Of course, because of the fact that both Philby and my grandfather were in Iraq serving the British in the military sense. But also when my grandfather moved to Bahrain and from there my father and my uncle who were hyper linguists, both of them, I mean, you know, each, I think my father spoke five languages and my uncle spoke six.

Eamon (15:06)

Another thing which must run in the blood, Eamon, because my goodness, you are also good at languages.

Ayman (15:11)

Thank you. So they moved across from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia just at the right time in 1932 when Saudi Arabia became the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Abdullah Filby, as I will always call him, Abdullah Filby because that's how my father and my uncle always called him Sheikh Abdallah Filby. He was instrumental in really delivering a blow to the British Empire. It doesn't sound right that an agent of the British Empire delivered a blow to the British Empire. But he was the reason why King Abdulaziz, when he was considering granting oil concessions to the Anglo Persian Oil Company, he decided, based on Sin Jam Filby or Sheikh Abdallah Filbi's advice to instead grant the rights to the Americans to the.

Eamon (16:10)

Ha ha.

Ayman (16:10)

Yeah, to your part of America, actually to California, to Southern California.

Eamon (16:16)

Before we go into the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, I'd like to zoom out and talk about Arabia in general. It's a very ancient place. It's vast. It's the size of India. It's been inhabited from really the beginning of time. And those beginnings have come down to us as sacred history, really recorded in the Bible and indeed in the Quran as well as an oral tradition. Now in the Bible, the forefathers of the Arabian people as well as the Jews is Abraham Ibrahim as he's known in the Arabic world, Abraham had two sons. The younger son born to his wife Sarah was Isaac, the father of Jacob, from whose twelve sons came the twelve tribes of Israel and down through the centuries to the Jews today. Now, Abraham's older son was Ishmael, born to his Egyptian concubine, Hagar. Now, Amon, tell us what happened to Hagar and Ishmael. In the story, Sarah was jealous of Hagar and Ishmael and instructed her husband Abraham to send them away. And he did. So where did he take them? According to the story, according to Islamic

Ayman (17:24)

teachings, God commanded him to go south, you know, from the Levant. So he kept going south and south and south. He thought he might, you know, drop them in the Nabat. But actually, like, he continued, he thought then it would be Yemen. But then God stopped him. So they ended up in an abandoned valley in a very, you know, barren valley, you know, and that valley later became Mecca. So there he left them. And Hagar, of course, was left alone with a child, her son Ishmael. But with no water, with nothing. But then she just encouraged her husband. If this is the God's command, then, you know, I will follow it. Just go. Miraculously, beneath Ishmael's feet, water started to gush, you know, and to come from beneath the ground. And that would later become known as the holy well of Zamzam, which is, you know, still, you know, gushing water to this day. Now, you know, when the birds started circling that valley, an Arab tribe, remember, Ishmael, is half Aramaic, half Egyptian.

Eamon (18:28)

Yes. Because Abraham was an Aramean. So Ishmael's father was an Aramean and his mother was an Egyptian.

Ayman (18:35)

Yeah. So when one Yemenite tribe from Yemen,

Eamon (18:41)

who are Arabic people, southern Arabs.

Host (Thomas) (18:44)

Really?

Eamon (18:44)

Yeah, yeah.

Ayman (18:46)

So when they were traveling towards the north, towards the Levant, they realized that the birds were circling that valley, and they were wondering, you know, there is no water. I mean, they only circle water, these birds. And so they went to inquire, and they found an Egyptian woman with a child in the middle of that barren valley, which has no water whatsoever, or any trees even. And they found her with lots of water, and she was trying to build a well around it. And so they ask her, you know, why on earth do you have water? How did this happen? So she explained, of course, in order to gain power over them, that she is the concubine of a holy man and this is his son, and that they were left there on God's command. And a miracle happened. This water came Out. So of course the tribe realized that this is a special woman and her son will be special. And so they said, can we settle beside you? Because if there is a water and this is on a caravan way, you know, trade caravan way, so we can make money, can we settle next to you? She said, yes, but me and my son are the masters of the water. They accepted. So they said but only on one condition, that when he comes of age, he will marry from us. So the tribe is called Durham. And when Ishmael became a young man, he married from them. And his language Aramaic and his half Egyptian heritage mixed with the southern Arabs and his 12 sons became the 12 new Arabian tribes of the north. And their language became the dominant which replaced the old southern Arabic.

Eamon (20:27)

It's a fascinating story because it really holds in the cultural memory of the Arabs something real about their origins. They are a mixture of an ancient, ancient southern Arabian people of the Aramean people of the north. Their language reflects a mixture of these two sources. And that's the story of how the city of Mecca was founded. Obviously an extremely important city today, both for Arabs and all Muslims. Now when Abraham left Hagar and Ishmael there, thinking of course that they might die, there was the holy well of Zamzam had not yet been revealed. He gave a famous prayer. The Quran records this prayer as My Lord, make this land secure and provide its people with fruits. This is called the prayer of Abraham. And Eamon, you told me quite interestingly that this prayer features importantly in Saudi self identity today.

Ayman (21:20)

Absolutely. They call it Da' wah to Ibrahim. You know, the prayer of Abraham whenever they discover oil. Oh, this is Abraham's prayer when he said the fruits. The fruits in the Quran doesn't mean like, you know, just only like the fruits you buy from the grocery. But it means the bounties, you know. It means whatever treasures you know that you will find in Arabia, it is the blessings of Abraham, you know, upon this land. So oil, that is the prayer of Abraham. Gold, phosphate, bauxite, you know, silver, you know, gas. This is a prayer of Abraham. This is what Abraham you know, you know how he blessed this land. And therefore this is why the descendants of Abraham right now are reaping the rewards of that prayer 4,000 years ago.

Eamon (22:01)

Which brings us back to oil where we left off. Now, by the time King Abdulaziz was rising in power, the geopolitics of oil were already active in the region. It had first been discovered in Iran in 1908 by what would become British Petroleum, then the First World War proved that petroleum was the future and that whoever controlled the oil had a major tactical advantage. Britain was the major player, but also France. And they signed an agreement in 1920 shutting American oil companies out of the Iraqi oil fields. Standard Oil of California was one of those big American companies. And in fact the thing that put Southern California, where I'm from, on the map was oil. And I can remember as a kid driving around and seeing still these creaky old oil pumps going up and down. Probably something similar to what you experienced, Damon, when you were driving around Khobar in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Now the Great Depression had reduced the pilgrimage of the Hajj by 60% and that was the major source of revenues for the Saudi government in the pre oil period. King Abdulaziz needed to find another source of funding. So this inspired his desire to get some oil prospecting going. And that's where, as you said before, Eamon, where St John Philby, despite being British, advised the King to grant the concession to the Americans. He thought it would better safeguard the country's independence. And so Standard Oil was given the concession in 1933 and started a subsidiary which would in time be called the Arabian American Oil Company Aramco. This is around the time that Philby met your uncle.

Ayman (23:43)

Absolutely. So I remember the story in the family is that when my uncle and my father, when they crossed from Bahrain into Saudi Arabia, their linguistic skills immediately caught the attention of Sin Jam Filby Abdullah Philbi, who was already talking to the American delegations and courting them in the Eastern Province and trying to convince them that there is oil. If there is oil in Bahrain, you know, there will be oil here. It's just the same shell, you know, the same continental shelf. It's the same, you know, place. I mean, if they find oil there, you will find oil here. Of course, it took five years until they found the first, you know, oil well and you know, then later, you know, they found the largest oil field in the world.

Eamon (24:25)

Yes, five years it took them, but they finally struck gold, as you say, Black Gold on the 3rd of March 1938. And this is the famous Damame Oil well number seven. Well, you can go visit it now. It's a kind of national monument.

Ayman (24:37)

So what happened here is that Abdullah Filbi realized that my uncle, who spoke six languages and was very much wise in the ways of the world and he was well traveled from Iraq to Bahrain to Cairo and back again. So he was very well educated. So he decided this young man could actually serve in the court of King Abdulaziz as a translator, an interpreter, which was very much needed. So my uncle was then sent to the court of King Abdulaziz to become an interpreter. So from being one of the first 10 employees of Aramco, and if you go to Aramco's museum, you will find his picture there as one of the first 10 employees there. You know, all the way to the court of King Abdelaziz. And it shows that the influence of Abdullah Filbi was positive in two areas as far as King Abdulaziz and his ruling strategy was concerned. First, Abdullah Philbi advised him to ignore the British and to give the oil concession to the Americans, which proved in later years to be absolutely vital not only for the independence of Saudi Arabia, but to the decline of the British Empire in later years, as, of course, they were denied these riches because of that advice which absolutely hacked off the British in later years regarding Abdallah Filbi and his betrayal. But the second advice, which was equally important, is that Abdallah Filbi told the king that you need to rely on the educated classes in the east and the west of Arabia, the Hijazi intelligentsia and the Eastern Province merchants who were mixing always with the British and India, India and the trading networks that were taking place there. If you rely on both, then you have to understand also that he also told him to incorporate the southern tribes in the south of Arabia. Al Ghamdis, al Zahranis, al Shahranis, Al Gurneys, all of these people who really

Eamon (26:44)

were Yemeni tribes really, originally, but they'd been conquered by the House of Saud.

Ayman (26:48)

Yeah, to incorporate them into the military. So he told them that a chair cannot stand on one leg. You have to have four legs. You have to have the Najdis, the Easterners, the Westerners, the Hijazis, and, you know, the southern Arabian provinces, all part of your court, part of your empire, you know, this new fledgling kingdom. And this is exactly what he did. And this is how, you know, a Durrani Afghan, you know, individual like my uncle, who was, you know, who raised in Iraq and Bahrain and studied in Cairo, and then, you know, spotted by Philip, ended up being the translator of King Abdulaziz. At the same time, when, you know, a Hijazi from another old Turkic family, a Turkish family, you know, Ottoman family, living in Medina for 500 years, you know, became the personal physician of King Abdulaziz.

Eamon (27:40)

Ah, you're talking about Muhammad Khashoggi, the grandfather of the famous Jamal Khashoggi. We'll get back to him in a second. So because of your father and his brother, your uncle migrated to the Eastern Province. That's where you grew up. And obviously that whole part of Saudi Arabia was dominated by Aramco, an American company, until beginning in the late 70s, it introduced a phased transfer of ownership to the Saudi government. Now, American culture must have to some extent been present there in your childhood. Even before the troops arrived in 1991 to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Is there something like a hint of a clash of civilizations there? I mean, there were cordial relations between the Saudis and the Americans, but Americans largely lived behind walls. Paint a picture of how this strange modern society of the Eastern Province, the oil society, with American oil engineers and Arabs from all over the world working, what kind of culture was it?

Ayman (28:41)

Well, actually, we used to see them more often than people would think was possible. American families, British families, Dutch families, because don't forget, you know, bp, British Petroleum and the Royal Dutch Shell company, they all were present there also as subcontractors or to provide services. Schlomberger, one of the companies that is famous in the world of oil, were there. So there were so many Europeans also like Americans, Canadians, Australians, Dutch, Germans and British. And there were certain supermarkets there that catered for their tastes. And so places like Safeway, you know, and Aramco had their own TV station which was broadcasting, you know, to the Eastern Province. And they had all the latest sitcoms from America. And so we were watching sitcoms and we were watching comedy shows coming from America and dramas and all of that because Aramco TV was brought to broadcasting there to the American families and to the Western audience there. So no, there was actually not only a cultural, you know, interaction, but also educational. Why? Because the schools I went to, you know, first, you know, Ibn Juber School and then Farabi School. These two schools, the primary and middle schools, were actually built by Aramco. And they were built to mirror exactly the same architecture picture and the same standard of high end American schools. So in the, with the lockers and everything and all of that, if you, if you walk into them, you will think you, you know, if an American walk into them, ignore the dress code, you know, you will think you are in an American. You know, there are basketball courts, you know, there are locker rooms and all of these things. And they were built by Aramco. And the King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals also was completely Americanized. You know, the entire education there from top to bottom basically is American curriculum. And most of the Professors and educators there were either Americans or were educated in America.

Eamon (30:55)

I wonder what the American residents of the Eastern Province thought about aspects of Arabian culture. Because certainly one thing which really divides Westerners from Muslims is Sharia law. Sharia law almost haunts Westerners. It's a sort of byword for harsh justice bordering on injustice. You know, we're sort of scared of it, and we all have the image in our minds of beheadings and public executions. I remember when I was first in Riyadh in 2011, being told about its infamous Chop Chop Square outside the city's main Friday mosque, where public beheadings were regularly carried out. Now, growing up, Eamon, the fact of public executions wouldn't have been particularly unusual for you, I think. I mean, you told me that you attended your first execution when you were nine years old.

Ayman (31:46)

Yes. You know, against the explicit orders of my family, of course. But nonetheless, you know, I still remember there was a case of a pedophile. I mean, someone basically who kidnapped a young boy and, you know, raped and killed him and. So.

Eamon (32:02)

Sounds like a real jerk, this guy.

Ayman (32:04)

Yeah, of course. And so one of my, you know, the execution. The executions in Khubar used to take place in a public square in front of a mosque called Anas bin Malik. I mean, for those listeners who are from Khubar, who they would be familiar with. And, you know, so one of my friends, his house was just overlooking the square. And so, you know, me and several friends, we went after Friday prayers to his house, to the rooftop, in order to observe. And even though the execution was taking place about 200 meters away, the sight of the sword striking the man and, of course, the head falling to the ground and the blood gushing, I mean, that, you know, basically sent me home. Back numb. I felt like, you know, my hands numb. Walking home, I was still in shock, you know, and, you know, my mother was screaming her lungs off. Like, why did you have to see it? Then two years later, I saw the other execution, but this time, basically, I was ready for it. This time I knew it was going to happen. And. Yeah, I mean, but then I saw in between executions that were supposed to happen but never happened.

Eamon (33:14)

Yeah. So this is interesting. I never really encountered this aspect of Sharia law. I mean, you told me, and it really fascinated me that the reason why public executions are encouraged in Sharia law isn't for the reasons that we might think. It's not because there's some prurient, sadistic desire to revel in someone's gruesome Death, it's actually, in a way, the opposite.

Ayman (33:36)

The reason why there are public executions and why the family of the victim or victims need to be present there to witness the justice being done is. And also for the other people to come and see is also for them, for the people to encourage and to, you know, really almost beg the family of the victims to forgive and to show forgiveness. There are, especially if the murder happened, you know, due to rage or, you know, not a premeditated murder, but basically something happened during rage, and there are no other aspects like rape or kidnapping or anything like that. So if it is just the question of a murder happened between two people, I mean, this is when the families are encouraged to forgive by the onlookers and bystanders, who sometimes basically will be willing to contribute to the blood money, to the compensation that the family would receive if they forgive.

Eamon (34:40)

So let's break this down. In Sharia law, murder is a civil offense. It's not actually a criminal offense. In the same way that we understand it, a murder case is settled between the victim and the murderer. The state is there to establish guilt and to arbitrate between those two parties. And if the victim's family decide to forgive, then all is forgiven. And this, as a Westerner, this comes as a shock. I mean, in a Western murder case, if the father or the son of a murder victim stands up in court and says, you, Honor, I forgive the murderer. The state will say, well, that's very nice of you, but this is up to us to punish the murderer, not you. This is different in Sharia law.

Ayman (35:24)

Yeah. Because the Sharia focuses a lot on restitution. In cases like these, especially in murder, they focus on restitution for the victim's family, and therefore, the victim's family are given control over the process. Why? Because if they want justice, they can get it. They can have a life for a life. A life is taken, so the other life will be taken too. An eye for an eye. However, if the family of the victim are willing to forgive, it is in their control. It was their gift. So even if they forgive, still justice is done. Because that person took a life, they spared a life. So one way or another, that power gives immense restitution in both ways.

Eamon (36:17)

Yes. I mean, you sent me some links, aemond, to some YouTube videos, which I watched. I watched with some trepidation because you could see there was the perpetrator, he was on his knees, and he was circled by Arabs, and there was the sword. And I thought, oh, no, what am I gonna See, and to my surprise, what I saw was the crowd really encouraging the victim's family to forgive, sometimes pushing money into the hands of the victim's family, saying, take this money. Forgive. It was very moving. It was clear that there was even a shaykh there that was trying to negotiate forgiveness, if you can imagine such a thing.

Ayman (36:54)

Because at the end of the day, you know, the Quran says, you know, an eye for an eye, you know, basically. But what it says after that, whoever, you know, forgive and, you know, seek the path of, you know, forgiveness, you know, God will reward him. So it is important to understand that, you know, people are not there, you know, to witness executions out of morbid curiosity. They are there to encourage forgiveness. One episode in particular of this forgiveness is that when the cleric who was responsible for my religious education as a young man, you know, from the age of nine until the age of 16, and under him, I learned so much of Islamic theology, and I'm still grateful to him to this day. So he was known for arbitrating between, you know, families of victims and families of murderers in order to try to, you know, achieve forgiveness. So he had a son, and his son was in his 20s. And in 2014, his son was murdered, you know, by, you know, basically a business associate over a dispute. I mean, it was, you know, just young people, hotheaded moment, and, you know, there was a stabbing, and, you know, his son was, you know, die. He died. He died. So the man was arrested. He was same age as the victim. So this cleric, he rushed to the prison to see that man. And when he went into the police station, of course, everyone in the police station know who he is. And they said to him, you know, of course, after offering their condolences, they said, you know, please, Sheikh, do not forgive at the beginning, you know, because they knew he was coming to forgive, you know, and rushing to forgive and, you know, let him just rot in prison for a while so he can know what happened. And he said, no, you know, I have a duty, and I know what I'm supposed to do. So he went, he met him. He said, just tell me what happened, you know, and he told him the story, and he was fully remorseful and cannot believe what happened and what rage overtook him. So the cleric said, I forgive you, and I don't want any blood money or compensation or restitution or anything. You can go. Just go home. And, of course, there was that shock. He said, I just killed your son. He said, I spent the past 25 years of my life convincing families of murdered people to forgive the murderers and to spare their lives. It will be extremely hypocritical of me now to be in this situation and I even hesitate because I cannot hesitate for the sake of other, you know, people who I will try to spare their lives later. So I have to spare yours now and without hesitation. So, you know, sometimes, like, I mean, when I reflect on this, I think that if only people know that forgiveness, you know, might always seem Christian, but it has a lot of room within Islamic.

Eamon (40:11)

Well, I certainly thought that myself when you told me the story the first time of this sheikh whose own son had been murdered, and yet he forgave the murderer immediately. I just thought, oh my goodness, he's more Christian than the Christians. So back to the rise of the Cold War.

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Eamon (41:14)

You know, it's said famously that Britain conquered the world in, quote, a fit of absence of mind. And if that's true, it's really even truer of the United States, especially in the Middle East. As we've said, America's foothold in Saudi Arabia began as a private concern. Aramco was a private company run on commercial lines only. And when the Second World War was brewing, King Abdulaziz in Riyadh adopted a neutral position. He favored the Allies, especially because Britain was still the great power in the region. But he did flirt with the Axis powers. So Japan, for example, did attempt to gain a countrywide oil concession in 1939. And King Abdulaziz listened to them. And this was particularly alarming to the Americans because Japan, you know, obviously was a growing imperial threat on the Pacific. This is when the U.S. military, the U.S. government began to regard Saudi independence as a strategic asset during the war. The US was also neutral at first. And for that reason, the British actually found it useful to allow the US to offer Abdulaziz various forms of aid to keep him more favoring the Allies. So there was a huge drought in 1939, for example, and the US sent an agricultural mission to help relieve the suffering there. And again, because the war had cut off global travel routes, the Hajj had collapsed and Abdulaziz needed money. So Aramco, through the encouragement of the US Government, stepped up and lent the Saudi government money amounting to the country's entire budget in 1939, in 1940, and in 1941. Then, of course, America, after Pearl harbor, joined the war, declared war on Germany and Japan, and its focus became increasingly on the Pacific theater to combat Japan. And so the US Navy needed Saudi Arabia as a way station and to guarantee oil supplies, which were, of course, vital to the war effort. And then towards the very end of the war, since aviation had really developed and would mean in the future that air bases would be what tied the world together and allowed America's imperial power projection to take off in the way that naval bases had done before. The Dhahran airfield was negotiated with King Abdulaziz and an air base was opened in Dahran for the US Air Force, which would become a linchpin in the Cold War.

Ayman (43:47)

Defense of that air base is only 800 meters from the home. I grew up in Khabar.

Eamon (43:52)

So you grew up with that air base just in your backyard.

Ayman (43:54)

I used to hear the fighter jets flying in and out all the time.

Eamon (44:00)

So with that base in Dhahran and with a firm foothold in Saudi Arabia, thanks to Aramco, America begins its Cold War journey. So now the American Saudi partnership in the Cold War, it developed slowly and it grew more important ideologically when the White House realized, and this is in the 60s now, that pan Islamism, grounded in the Saudi king's control of the two holy mosques, was an effective counterweight to the competing ideology of Arab nationalism focused on Egypt, which was, broadly speaking, supported by the Soviet Union as a. As a means of eventually spreading communism into the region. Now, Saudi pan Islamism and anti Arab nationalism led to the kingdom accepting ideological Islamists, mainly Muslim Brotherhood members, as refugees from other Muslim countries where they were being persecuted. These Muslim Brotherhood members entered the civil service, the security services, and the education system and helped to spread modern Islamist ideas throughout Saudi society. This would, in time, combine with the country's own version of Salafist Islam to create the monster we know as global jihadism. You know, Al Qaeda and other such groups that we've talked about a lot unconflicted. But in the 80s, as we all know, this form of Islamism was harnessed by the US in its Cold War struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan. And as I say, this has all been covered and conflicted before. The Saudis maintained this Cold War relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood long after the Cold War ended. And we can say that within the Saudi political establishment there have always been reformist voices advocating for change. And these reformist voices were on a spectrum with liberals at one end advocating secularism, freer markets, individual rights, things like that, and moderate Islamists on the other end affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. This approach, where the Saudi government attempted to balance Islamist and liberal voices within the political spectrum came to an end with the Arab spring, especially in 2013. Isn't that right, Eamon?

Ayman (46:11)

Oh, yeah. 2013, I think was the moment in which the Saudis, or I would say basically the wing within the Saudis who wanted to divorce themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood, won the argument against the other wing which believed that a coexistence with the Muslim Brotherhood was possible.

Eamon (46:31)

At the time, you remember, the Muslim Brotherhood had achieved power through democratic means in Egypt. This was the result of the Arab Spring in Egypt there were elections and Mohamed Morsi became president. He was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood or a Muslim Brotherhood leader there.

Ayman (46:46)

Absolutely. But here we come to the thorny issue of the coup led by the current president of Egypt, Abdel Fattahasisi. And the question here, the choices that were presented to the Saudi leadership at the time, it was under the rule of King Abdullah. Late King Abdullah convened a meeting and that meeting was an urgent national security meeting in which his son, the head of the National Guard, Prince Muta IBN Abdullah, his other son, the Minister of Foreign affairs who was serving under the foreign Minister, Abdelazizmi Abdullah Saud Al Faisal, the foreign Minister, was there. His brother Turk Al Faisal, who was in the past the head of the gip, the intelligence Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, who was the Minister of Interior and his now on the run advisor, Saad Al Jibri was there. And the question was like this. In six hours the Egyptian military is going to depose the democratically elected President of Egypt, Mahmoud Morsi.

Eamon (47:56)

So Sisi had called King Abdullah to say, look, we're going to do this. Do we have your buy in?

Ayman (48:01)

I mean, the Egyptian military institution as a whole called up the Saudis and the Emiratis and told them, we are going to move against President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. We are going to depose them completely from power. And in order for this coup to be successful diplomatically and accepted by legitimized.

Host (Thomas) (48:23)

Really?

Ayman (48:23)

Yeah. Legitimized? Yeah. You know, in the eyes of the world, we need your backing. You are the de facto leader or semi leader of the Sunni Muslim world and therefore we need you on our side. Now, the reality is that the King Abdullah asked, will that come back against us? I mean, because if we do that, then we are going to be divorced completely from the Muslim Brotherhood and we cut all ties with them and we burn all the bridges. So those who were arguing for, no, we shouldn't back this up and we shouldn't let this happen. This will antagonize the Muslim Brotherhood. This will encourage more terrorism, which had

Eamon (49:07)

been an important plank in Saudi foreign policy. For example, in Yemen, I mean, the Saudis had very close relationships with the Islah Party in Yemen, which is a largely Muslim Brotherhood party. It was one way in which Saudi Arabia kept a handle on things in Yemen. So being open to the Muslim Brotherhood for many decades was an important part of Saudi foreign policy. But this was all changing.

Ayman (49:28)

Yeah. And the reason is because those who actually advocated for burning the bridges said that in the year between middle of 2012 to the middle of 2013, in which Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were in charge of Egyptian politics and Egyptian diplomacy, it proved to be disastrous. Why? Because the fact is that the Muslim Brotherhood couldn't wait to enact certain policies that encouraged forms of extremism to grow. And I'm talking about the fact that they opened the prisons wide to jihadists and extremists to roam around without any restrictions. Hamas terrorists, like, in a way, roaming in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria without any checks on them. So for me, for example, I mean, as someone who was the fatwa on his head, like in Al Qaeda, I used to go to Egypt, you know, before and after the uprising, you know, in 2009 and 2010. And then, you know, and then after that, in 2011, even in Ramadan of 2011, I was in Egypt. I was praying in the mosques, I was going to Alexandria, I was going to Cairo. No problem whatsoever. It is after Morsi took over that, you know, Muhammad Zawahiri, you know, the brother of Ahman Al Zawahiri, was roaming the streets. Fine. Like those returnees from Afghanistan, all of the people who the Egyptian intelligence, with the Pakistani intelligence help, rounded up from Peshawar in Pakistan and from the camps in Afghanistan, they were imprisoned in Egypt. Their prison cells were opened. In fact, the master bomb maker of Al Qaeda, Abu Khabab, you know, who's Egyptian, his own son.

Eamon (51:15)

Who taught you how to make bombs.

Ayman (51:18)

Absolutely. His own son, another qualified bomb maker, was let loose and was actually given a passport in order to go and fight in Syria. So suddenly, the Saudis in particular were worried as well as the Emiratis and even the Kuwaitis. They were worried. We thought the Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt will be moderate and they will not appease the extremists to this level. It was really worrying. I know many listeners will be thinking, oh, but they were democratically elected. And I accepted not that, but as someone who was keeping an eye on all of the issues regarding security and safety in the Muslim world, in the Arab world and in the Middle east, the level of extremist infiltration and jihadist congregation in Egypt between mid-2012 to 2013 was alarming for everyone, including the Saudis and myself also.

Eamon (52:16)

So, as you say, King Abdullah convened this meeting with all the top decision makers in the kingdom and said, look, are we going to support this coup or not? And he took a straw pole of the room.

Ayman (52:26)

The majority supported King Abdullah's inclination to support the coup and especially Princes Saud Al Faisal and Turk Al Faisal. Of course, Turk Al Faisal was worried about the number of jihadists who are free at large in Egypt, whether one day they will turn their gaze on Saudi Arabia again and we will have the bloody years of Al Qaeda's campaign between 2003 and 2006 in Saudi Arabia repeated.

Eamon (52:54)

Now, with all this background info, we're in a place to better understand an event that could have been ripped straight from the Cold War. And I'm talking about the notorious murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. I got to admit, Ayman, in the run up to recording this episode today, I've been having sleepless nights. The Khashoggji affair is a landmine and the things you've got to say about it don't entirely conform to the received narrative. Now, how can I be sure that you're not whitewashing what is unquestionably a gruesome murder and a heinous crime carried out by agents of the Saudi government?

Ayman (53:39)

I would say that here at Conflicted, we only deal with facts. And facts are facts. And it doesn't care about our narratives and our prejudices and who we favor and who we don't favor. In real world, basically we're dealing with facts. And based on the facts. Facts alone also, sometimes, basically are orphans. And the parents of the facts are precedent and analysis. And you have to put these three together, facts, precedent and analysis. And once you put them together, you reach the truth.

Eamon (54:11)

My problem, of course, as an ordinary guy, I'm not like you, Eamon. I don't have access to privileged information. So as an ordinary guy trying to find out the facts, I sometimes struggle. And this is one of the problems with the 21st century and with the sort of media environment that we have today. It's not always easy to know what the facts are. Now, when it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, most of our listeners will know who he is. He was born in Medina in 1958 to that prominent Hejazi family that you mentioned before, with close connections to the royal family. As we said, his grandfather was King Abdulaziz's personal physician. Now, in the late 70s, like many, many young men of his generation, Jamal Khashoggi was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, he claimed that he officially joined them for a time and he adopted their perspective on world affairs. Now this was very usual at the time. In the early 80s, he became a journalist and established himself as one of the Arab world's most dynamic voices, reporting on the jihad in Afghanistan especially during which he became acquainted with leading figures in that campaign, including Osama bin laden. By the 90s, his journalism overlapped with intelligence work on behalf of the Saudi government as they sought to rein in an increasingly threatening bin Laden. And Khashoggi became an outspoken advocate of reform at home, a key spokesperson, in fact, for that wing of the reformist class which inclined more towards a Muslim Brotherhood influenced perspective on politics. Now, I've tried to be balanced there. I believe those are the facts about Jamal Khashoggi. If you agree, Ayman, then you can tell us about when you met Jamal Khashoggi.

Ayman (55:54)

I met him in 2012 in Jeddah, and I must say I was impressed by his intellect, by his knowledge, by his ability to recall events and dates with clarity, individuals, and his knowledge radiated. You can tell basically that the man spoke with an air of authority and understanding and background knowledge which made him sometimes come across as arrogant. But nonetheless, if I was Jamal, I would be arrogant a little bit too.

Eamon (56:24)

I mean, some people might consider you to be a bit arrogant in your knowledge. Eamon.

Ayman (56:29)

Maybe I should be more humble.

Eamon (56:30)

Actually, we all should be more humble, ain.

Ayman (56:34)

Absolutely. So there was a red flag though, which annoyed me when he expressed indignation that I worked for the British because at the time, of course, I kept this issue secret. It was still 2012. I didn't come out, you know, publicly as, you know, a double agent until 2015. But of course because of the, you know, I didn't want to alarm him that, oh, I knew bin Laden because I was a member of the Qaeda. So I thought, okay, I will soothe his fears by saying, but also, I was a double agent, you know, so. And he was said, really? I mean, how. How could you. How could you, you know, do that even? And I was, what, joining Al Qaeda? He said, no, joining the British. And I was like, Jamal, you know, so of course, like. And I didn't call him Jamal. I said, astad Jamal. I have to, you know, show some respect. So I said to him, sad Jamal. I mean, I was actually passing information to the British on Al Qaeda in Arabia, you know, including people like Al Ieri and Al Migran and Al Hajj, I mean, who were terror masterminds in Saudi Arabia. They were actually, you know, terrorizing this country.

Eamon (57:39)

Well, they launched enormous attacks, killing many, many people.

Ayman (57:42)

Yes, absolutely. Foreigners and Saudis alike. So I said. When I said this to him, that seemed to calm him down, you know, and he was saying, yeah, but I don't like the British. I mean, basically, I mean, you know, he called Britain, I mean, the mother of all evils.

Eamon (57:58)

Wow. He lived in London for much of the 90s, where he was editing a newspaper here.

Ayman (58:04)

Exactly. I mean, so I was wondering. Okay, thank you for your insight.

Eamon (58:08)

You know, he. He of course knew Osama bin Laden from early on in the 80s. He must have had some lingering disappointment, would you say?

Ayman (58:18)

No, no, It's a romantic idea of Osama bin Laden. I mean, the man was on and on about the manner of his burial. It's like, which idiot who advised the Americans to just dump his body to the sea? That's not how he should have been buried. He should have been buried with honor. And I kept telling him, you know, ustad Jamal, I mean, remember, please, that, you know, the Osama bin Laden you knew in the 1980s and early 1990s is not the same that man that I met in the mid-1990s. I mean, by then, the complete brainwash, you know, by the Egyptian jihadists and extremists around him, you know, was complete. They really, totally, totally, like, changed him into the monster that he, you know, was transformed into later. So, please, you know, do not confuse the two. He changed. People change, you know, to the worse. And he still. He still had a lingering romantic vision of Osama bin Laden. And he said, you know, if only we engaged with him. I remember this word exactly. If only we engaged with him, we could have saved him, you know, from those Egyptians, brought him back to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation.

Eamon (59:29)

Of course, he actually was sent to the Sudan in the mid-90s to engage with Osama bin Laden and bring him back to Saudi Arabia and he failed. At that time, he was already an intelligence asset for the Saudi government. He became an advisor to Prince Turki Al Faisal, the head of Saudi intelligence and remained in that capacity for Prince Turkey until that fateful year 2013, when Prince Turkey decided to back King Abdullah's support of the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. This is where a kind of rift opened up between Jamal Khashoggi and the royal family.

Ayman (60:03)

Oh, totally. That's exactly the time when Jamal realized that the government is now heading towards a direction of confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood. So this is why, when, you know, when we talk about the fact that the rift between Cemal and the royal family didn't happen when King Salman and his son MBS came to power. No, it happened, you know, two years earlier than that.

Eamon (60:27)

We don't want to get into the weeds here of Saudi politics, though it is fascinating. King Salman becomes king in 2015. Shortly thereafter, he makes his nephew, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. Crown Prince. Mohammed bin Nayef, it is understood, had opposed the move to support the coup in Egypt. He thought that Saudi Arabia should maintain its delicate balancing act with the Muslim Brotherhood. So he was already a little bit out of step with the way things were going in Riyadh. Which is why in 2017, Mohammed bin Salman managed to replace Mohammed bin Nayef as crown prince. Mohammed bin Nayef was placed under house arrest. Mohammed bin Nayef's closest advisor, Saad Al Jabri, fled the country. And in the same month that that happened, Jamal Khashoggi fled the country. He moved to the United States and began writing editorials for the Washington Post. So there he is writing editorials for the Washington Post, some of them critical of the Saudi government. But nonetheless, that's what he's doing. How then, Eamon, does he end up chopped into small bits in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul?

Ayman (61:35)

Well, the Saudi intelligence were worried that since Cemal was one of their assets for almost 20 years, that he might leak sensitive information and intelligence to Saudi government opponents in the region, namely Qatar and Turkey. And according to one of the intelligence officers I talked to at the time, they feel that he might have done that.

Eamon (62:04)

Why do they think that? What was the evidence?

Ayman (62:07)

Because some information were leaked to Qatari backed press which suggests that Jamal might have been the source. Most likely he was the source. And as a result the Saudis were extremely annoyed with him. Countries tend to be annoyed with former intelligence operatives blabbing out to the press in a negative way. That's why I Never speak ill of the British government, ever. You never heard it from me. So basically the situation here is that the Saudis started to become agitated and they were trying several tactics to lure him back into the country with offers of amnesty, with offers of come back, we will just debrief you and you will be fine. But he was having none of it. He knew basically that as soon as you go back, he will disappear into one of the cells for a few years, won't be released and won't see his family maybe for four or five years at least. So he did what he the sensible thing of staying in the United States. That's perfect. However, it all went horribly wrong when he fell in love with a young Turkish woman who was an intelligence analyst in the Turkish Military Intelligence or called the mit, which you know, her own father also was an intelligence operative in the same agency. So he fell in love with her. He was lured to Turkey by the Turkish intelligence and with Qatari backed money in order to set up something called the Dawn Initiative, which is a think tank to promote democratic reform in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries. He decided to move to Istanbul. And when he moved there, of course he married that woman. All the press call her his fiance. But in reality the marriage actually was based on religious ceremony.

Eamon (64:17)

So they went through a religious marriage, but according to the government, they weren't married.

Ayman (64:23)

So she was religiously his wife, but legally wasn't. And there is a reason for that, because Jamal was already married to two ladies in Saudi Arabia. He already had two wives and he was married to them because Saudi Arabia polygamy is allowed, but in Turkey it wasn't. So he needed proof of divorce from both wives, which he obtained in the end. But the idea is that he need to go to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in order to obtain these papers. And that is where of course, the tragedy happened. First he went for the first meeting there in order to ask for the papers and the Saudi Consulate promised, yeah, you can come back and we will provide you with all the papers necessary. However, of course the Saudi Consulate alerted the Saudi Royal court that Jamal was at our consulate. I mean, he was asking for the papers to marry someone.

Eamon (65:20)

And not only that, we know precisely when he's going to come back.

Ayman (65:23)

Absolutely. So as far as the Saudis were concerned, they were aware already of his plans with the Qataris and the Turks to establish that dawn center in Istanbul. They were worried about his links to a group of fanatics in Turkey called Hezbol Ummah, you know, which is the Ummah Party run by, you know, people who are close to the Muslim Brotherhood, opposition people, you know, against the uae, against, against Kuwait, against Egypt, against, you know, linked to the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. So they were worried that he is getting deeper and deeper and deeper into the enemy's laps.

Eamon (66:00)

So now the Saudi government knows that on this date and at this time, Cemal Khashoggi is going to be in our consulate in Istanbul.

Ayman (66:07)

But they have only a week. And this is, I think, where things started to go horribly wrong as far as the Saudi plan was concerned.

Eamon (66:13)

What was this plan? What did they want to do? Did they want to kill him?

Ayman (66:17)

Okay, this is where I really beg the listeners indulgence because the prevailing narrative out there is that the Saudis wanted to kill him in the consulate. And this couldn't have been further from the truth. The reality here is that based on facts, precedent and analysis, they wanted to kidnap him because everything about the team that was sent, you know, to retrieve him from Istanbul to kidnap him basically, is similar to previous at least four occasions, you know, in 2016, 2013, you know, and 2012 and 2011. I mean, there were many occasions in the past, especially four occasions, where the Saudis will send private jets with teams in order to kidnap either a rogue member of the Saudi royal family or a certain officer or a businessman who is running away.

Eamon (67:12)

I see. So you go, you go abroad, you send a team abroad, they sedate the their target, and then they claim that the target is ill. And then under the guise of medical evacuation, they're airlifted out back to Saudi. That's the kind of. That's the precedent.

Ayman (67:25)

Absolutely, that's the precedent. The analysis here is that if the Saudis wanted him dead, and I've been told this now by a multitude of Saudi either officers or senior officials, if we wanted him dead, why we send our own people to be caught on cameras to do the deed on our own soil there in Istanbul, which is the Saudi consulate, you know, having our fingerprints all over it. You know, we don't do that. Like, I mean, this is very stupid. If we wanted him dead, there are, in Istanbul especially, you know, there are Chechen mafias, Russian mafias, Albanian mafias. We could have hired any of them for $200,000. They would have done the job perfectly and our hands will be clean. We didn't want to kill him, and that's not our M.O. or modus operandi.

Eamon (68:08)

I mean, if that's the case, Eamonn, then why did they send a forensic scientist with a bone saw I mean, that's pretty, that's. That's pretty damning evidence, isn't it?

Ayman (68:17)

No, absolutely not. And the reason is because with every other kidnapping, they would have done the same. Why? Because at any given stage, either the victim would resist and die, so you need to dispose. Or the victim, you know, the one who you need to kidnap, could actually resist and kill someone. Kill a member of your team. So you need also to basically dismember that member and bring him back.

Eamon (68:44)

It's not a very happy story, that's for sure. So what happened in the consulate, according to your analysis and what, you know,

Ayman (68:50)

the weak timescale in which they were supposed to put this team together and send them was one of the reasons why the whole operation failed as well as who was put in charge of this operation. In the past, it used to be only the gip, the General Intelligence Presidency, which basically handles a cases which is

Eamon (69:11)

like the CIA of Saudi Arabia.

Ayman (69:13)

Yeah. In this case it was mostly done under the supervision of Saud Al Ghahtani.

Eamon (69:19)

Saud Al Kahtani at that time the crown prince, MBS's top advisor.

Ayman (69:24)

Absolutely. Now, he is an amateur as well as a sadist. An incompetent, you know, to add, you know, to put three things together in a deadly combination.

Eamon (69:34)

An incompetent, sadistic amateur. Well, that doesn't sound like you're not as big as fan.

Ayman (69:40)

Oh, God. I mean, you know, you know, he is. He was one of the obstacles to real reform in Saudi Arabia. And you know, maybe one of the, you know, one of the silver linings basically of what happened with Jamal, you know, may God bless his soul, was the fact that, you know, Saudi Gahtani was taken out of the picture because of, you know, this incident. But nonetheless, what happened is that in the embassy and we have to rely on, you know, at least two Western intelligence agents who I know who listened to the, you know, carefully selected and edited 7 1/2 minutes audio tape from inside the consulate.

Eamon (70:17)

Yeah. The Turkish government had actually bugged the consulate and then after the fact released seven and a half minutes of the audio to the intelligence community. So Jamal Khashoggi arrives, they arrest him, they place him in front of a Skype call to Saadul Qahtani.

Ayman (70:31)

Well, from what I gathered from these two European intelligence analysts who listened to the tape, he was rude, condescending.

Eamon (70:43)

You mean Saud Al Qahtani?

Ayman (70:45)

Yes, and disrespectful towards Jamal. I mean, there was no question, you know, that with all this disrespect and all this bile, you know, being thrown at him by Saud Al Gahtani. I mean, he realized he's going to be kidnapped because he's aware of all the kidnappings that happened before and that he's going to be sedated. So he started to resist. So when they inserted the sedative gun in his neck, the Saudi government narrative is that it malfunctioned. Whether it malfunctioned or not, the reality is that the pumping of the sedative might have been prolonged and more sedative went into his system because either the struggle or malfunction of the sedative gun itself, nonetheless, that caused a cardiac arrest and he died. And this is where the team there, you know, could have salvaged the whole issue by basically just calling a ambulance. That is the right thing to do, immediately call an ambulance and just say he just collapsed, you know, he was, you know, out of control. We wanted to sedate him and just, just he collapsed. And they could have basically avoided a complete disaster that happened afterwards. But, and you know, and who knows, maybe the Turkish medics could have revived him on the spot. But unfortunately they decided to go down the dark path of COVID up. And this is where the, you know, the forensic medical expert was called in order to dismember and to get rid of Jamal's body. And so the dismemberment happened. And to this day, no one knows where Jamal's body is. And this is when the lies started to be concocted around what really happened.

Eamon (72:35)

Lies from the perpetrators, lies from the Saudi government. Confusion, mismessaging, the narrative was constantly changing. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible cock up and, and basically surrounded by tremendous evil and darkness.

Ayman (72:50)

Absolutely. And the problem is because the advisors, especially Saudi Gahtani and the perpetrators, the team, were not communicating properly with the government back home. What really happened? And they gave conflicting narratives to the point where they started blaming each other. And everyone is saying, well, the fault lies with this person or that person or that person. So it became a really an issue of the truth lost between a group of incompetent operatives who basically bogged down the whole operation. What was supposed to be a straightforward medical evacuation kidnapping turned into a gruesome murder and an international scandal on a big scale. The Turkish government wanted to milk this as much as possible for their own advantage, including trade deals or weapon deals with the Saudis. And they were negotiating these. Absolutely. The problem here is that the narrative was already out and decided that it

Eamon (73:57)

is a murder, it is an Assassination, that's the problem. It was a murder. But I think the narrative is it was a premeditated assassination, which is what you're saying it was not?

Ayman (74:11)

No, there was no premeditation for assassination. If they wanted to assassinate him, there are many other ways they could have done it without having to do it themselves.

Eamon (74:21)

Eventually, the perpetrators of the murder in the consulate were arrested by the Saudi government and an investigation was launched. And according to the Saudi government, justice was served there. They were found guilty of murder. The Saudi government eventually admitted that a murder had occurred. They denied that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman knew anything about it in advance. People contest that, of course, but no one was executed. Eamon reports are that people like Saad Al Qahtani are under house arrest, not even in prison. How can we say justice was served if, following this murder, no one was executed, no one is serving really hard time?

Ayman (75:10)

And this is where we have to go back again to the question of who is in control of this process. Now it will be the family.

Eamon (75:18)

The family of the victim, Khashoggi's family.

Ayman (75:20)

Yes, absolutely. So we're talking about Salah Abdullah, his sons. The question of what will happen to the people. Now, there were 16 people involved. Five were found not guilty of the murder because they were away. And the five were sentenced to death. And six people were sentenced to prison terms. Now, even the five who were supposed to be executed, they are still seven prison sentences. Now, the question here is that it was put before the family that we have these five who we believe that caused the struggle to go out of hand. They are the ones who agitated him more than anything else. They are the ones who are responsible for. Responsible for not calling for help afterwards and then decided to let him just die on the floor and then be dismembered. And these five will face the death penalty. So a court sentenced him to death. And their fate then was presented to the sons of Jamal Khachog Ji, Salah An Abdullah. They were presented with the fact that these people are sentenced to death. What is your inner desire? Do you want to forgive or do you want to see justice served and these people executed? Now, to show something is that the family, you know, decided not to forgive for five months. For five months they held their ground all the way until May of 2020. And then they said that the reason why they wanted to, you know, for, you know, to wait for five months is because May 2020 coincided with the month of Ramadan in the holy month of Ramadan, and that they wanted to announce the Forgiveness during the month of Ramadan in order for this act of forgiveness to be amplified in the eyes of God. But also at the same time, to my knowledge and in good authority that the considerable compensation, you know, and restitution by the Saudi government was paid to the family, whether in a very large lump sum in the tens of millions of US dollars, as well as, you know, housing and income for life. So it was one of the largest still yet undisclosed, but largest settlement offered by the Saudi government.

Eamon (77:53)

In Western terms, we would not think that justice was served in the Jamal Khashoggi case. But you were saying that in Saudi terms, justice was served.

Ayman (78:04)

Well, and this is where the clash of civilizations, you know, is going to happen now, because in the Western mindsets, you know, any Western listener listening to me right now, they will think this is a farce. You know, these people should be sent to jail for the rest of their lives. And, you know, MBS himself should answer for this. And, you know, you will have all of these, you know, things being said. Yes, that's fine. I respect that. I understand that from the Saudi perspective, it's no different than any other case. I mean, you know, it's, you know, that if the family said, okay, we forgive, we forgive. The Saudi mindset is that one, the state admitted guilt, number one. Number two, the children were summoned to the royal court and they got an apology from the king and his son, mbs, they apologized and they explained that this was not our intention. All the facts, you know, basically that presented to the Khachoggji family and they were always given the transcripts of the interrogations point to the fact that this was not supposed to be a assassination. It was supposed to be a kidnapping. But unfortunately it went horribly wrong. And then the blood money. The blood money was paid. Once the blood money is paid and accepted by the family, then by Saudi standard, not mine, from the Saudi point of view, justice has been served.

Host (Thomas) (79:32)

Well, dear listeners, there you had it. Eamon's take on one of the most shocking and certainly notorious stories of our time. Listening back to the original ending of that episode, Eamon and I go on to gesture towards the Russian troops mustering along Ukraine's eastern border. We didn't know then that within days those troops, troops would be heading towards Kiev. That was four years ago, as of today, the 24th of February. Four years of relentless, bloody war. We've covered it off and on, on conflicted. You may wish to listen to season three, episode four, which we called borderline post Soviet disorder. And also my interview with my old university friend Jakob Yaitse, which we Re released only this past Christmas. Thank you for listening. Indeed, for re listening, our thoughts go out to Eamon as he recovers from this nasty viral cold they're calling it. God willing, we'll finally record and release our first in a two part series on Boko Haram next Tuesday. And of course, as always, you'll find another connection Conflicted Conversation in your feed on Thursday. This time I'm speaking to friend of the show Martin Plout about his new book unbroken chains, a 5,000 year history of African enslavement. Not to be missed. Until then, take care everyone. Conflicted is a message heard Production Our executive Executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Rowan Bishop.

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