Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[faint indistinct chatter]
♪ dramatic music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[static crackling]
[man] Today the United Nations released
a report on the assassination
of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi,
and I must warn you this report
is the most horrifying thing
that I've ever had to read from this chair.
- It says... - [woman] On Tuesday,
Jamal Khashoggi walked into this Saudi consulate...
[man] ...and seemed to vanish.
[man] There is an anxiety
that he could have been spirited out of the country.
[woman] The Saudi government still offering
conflicting narratives...
[Salem] Jamal worked directly for the royal family
in different capacities.
He was a loyal Saudi,
but how he defined that loyalty
over time changed...
speaking Arabic
[laughter]
[Salem] ...as did the kingdom itself.
[woman] Turkish officials have audio and video recordings
that prove the journalist was...
[woman] ...strangled as soon as he entered
the Saudi consulate.
[man] ...killed during a fistfight.
[woman] ...asphyxiated with a plastic bag.
[man] Khashoggi was tortured, murdered...
[Wright] Jamal enjoyed access to princely protection,
but that protection depended upon the princes themselves
having influence.
[Maloney] He was already in danger,
but this was exponentially more dangerous.
The Saudi monarchy operates like the Mafia,
and you don't cross the godfather.
[man] This lays out in forensic detail
how they planned to murder him, to dismember him.
- [man] ...fingers cut off... - [man] ...joints separated...
[woman] You could hear them laughing.
We were always doing all this work for something bigger,
for country, for king.
Anybody that tells you that they know
every aspect of Jamal's life, they are 100% lying to you.
[man] ...calling for the administration
to punish Saudi Arabia.
[man] There's not a smoking gun; there's a smoking saw.
[man] This is the worst moment
in U.S.-Saudi relations since 9/11.
[Obaid] I mean, the moral of the story is...
the moral of the story is that there is no moral.
There is no morality.
I mean, what is the morality of this?
I wouldn't be able to give you an answer.
[static crackling]
[man] There are reports the CIA
now has high confidence
the murder was ordered by the Saudi crown prince...
[man] The United States is condoning the murder
of a U.S. resident...
[Trump] Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't.
They did not know...
[woman] Why kill Jamal Khashoggi?
♪♪♪♪♪
[man] Okay, go ahead.
[woman] Okay, great.
Are you-are you looking off camera?
[man] Yeah, he's looking off camera.
[woman] Okay, thanks. Great.
How do I describe you?
Like, what kind of title should I give you?
I'm a Saudi journalist, uh,
self-exiled in Washington.
[Faris as Khashoggi] I write for The Washington Post.
[woman] Okay, and why? Why did you self-exile?
[Faris as Khashoggi] How breathtakingly fast
you can fall out of favor.
It is all quite shocking.
Saudi Arabia is the only home we know or want,
yet we are the enemy.
How did all this change?
[engine rumbling]
I was a teenager in the 1970s
and grew up in the markets around the Prophet's Mosque.
As a Saudi journalist starting my career,
I witnessed phenomenal growth and expansion.
Scholars and the people were brimming with expectations.
And the United States
was our most important trading partner,
importer of Saudi oil
and our main source of weapons.
[Rundell] The Saudi-American relationship
started as a commercial relationship.
The Saudis were a reservoir of global energy.
I was a foreign service officer for 30 years.
Basically, everybody from Jimmy Carter
to, uh, Barack Obama.
There's really nobody--
and I say that perhaps
somewhat forcefully, but it's true,
that there is no other American
with my level of experience.
The American government really had no relations
with Saudi Arabia until what's today Chevron
went there and began to drill for oil.
[Brennan] Administration after administration,
in the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s,
wanted to make sure that the government, uh, in Riyadh,
uh, was going to be, uh, one that was closely aligned
with the United States.
I was working at the CIA in Saudi Arabia
in the early 1980s.
It was soon after King Fahd rose to the throne.
And during that period
there was a significant infusion
of military support to the fledging Saudi military.
We were very concerned about making sure
the Saudi monarchy was going to be stable.
[indistinct chatter]
[Wright] Saudi Arabia is divided
into the royals and the nonroyals,
and the royals own everything.
You know, it's named after their family.
The whole kingdom is Saudi Arabia,
ruled by the sons of King Abdulaziz
for a hundred years.
You can get totally lost
in the Kremlinology of the Saudi royal family.
[indistinct chatter]
But it's a family, and they govern by consensus.
There are spats and there are factions,
but until recently,
decisions would be made by consensus.
And in the category of nonroyals,
Jamal Khashoggi carried a lot of influence.
I don't think there was any place in Saudi Arabia
that was closed to him.
It wasn't just that he was powerful.
People liked him.
[helicopter rotors whirring]
Jamal had an interesting analysis
of the problems of Saudi Arabia.
We talked about the schizophrenia
that so many Saudis had expressed to me.
[indistinct chatter]
It's undemocratic. It's intolerant.
It is one step below a theocracy.
From the beginning of our relationship,
America's had this tie to this distinctly
non-American entity
and has enabled it, up to this day, to survive.
[man] speaking Arabic
[Rundell] To call them authoritarian
is true in an absolute sense,
but really, most administrations
who deal with Saudi Arabia over time
become aware of the fact that Saudi Arabia
is a valuable friend, a valuable ally,
and to throw that under the bus is a bad idea.
[call to prayer playing over loudspeakers]
[Wright] Saudi Arabia was a part of the world
that we didn't care about, except for the oil.
They can believe what they want to believe
as long as they keep pumping.
But that totally changed
when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan
in December '79.
[artillery firing]
[gunfire]
Afghanistan was the major Islamic cause
in Saudi Arabia in the '80s.
Americans did not want to appear
as if they are in direct war with the Soviet Union,
so we in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
were doing a cover-up in the operation,
which was an open secret.
Everybody knew about it,
this Saudi-American-Pakistani campaign
to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.
♪♪♪♪♪
I do not deny that I had sympathy
toward the Afghan cause,
because, uh, I myself come out from Islamic circles,
and I still believe it was a just cause.
And Saudi Arabia should be appreciated for that.
And it was a big story, which, uh, kind of, uh, made my name
in the field of journalism.
[all] chanting in Arabic
[chanting continues]
♪♪♪♪♪
[Faris as Khashoggi] The Arab News,
Afghanistan, May 4, 1988.
A report by Jamal Khashoggi.
Muslims are one nation.
Despite geographical barriers
and differences in color and language,
they consider themselves brothers.
As many as 1,000 Arab youths are here in Afghanistan.
They are actively involved in the war.
Most come from Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Algeria, Morocco.
The assistant to the commander
of the northern Panjshir base is an Algerian
named Abdullah Anas.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Anas] So you have to cross seven mountains
to come from Pakistan.
Jamal Khashoggi, I remember,
we come across with him.
You are talking about a journey
where, uh, could have, uh, avalanche, snow.
You could face air strikes.
You could, uh, face ambushes from the Soviets.
But on top of being scared,
you are more excited
because you feel this is a gift
you are gifted by Allah,
that you are part of the mujahideen,
you are, uh, um...
finally, you are, uh, making the history
with these heroes and these, uh-uh, brave people.
So all this makes you forget that threat,
forget the-the fear, forget, uh, everything.
♪♪♪♪♪
speaking Arabic
♪♪♪♪♪
[artillery firing]
[Wright] Jamal went to Afghanistan
to be a war correspondent.
He did not have much of a reputation then,
but there was this little group of Arabs
led by Osama bin Laden,
who was, at that point, practically unknown.
It was a propitious moment in Jamal's career.
They got to be friends.
He was somewhat blinded
by the charisma
and-and the-the sense of history
that surrounded this young man.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Anas] speaking Arabic
[Khashoggi] I met Osama the first time
at the end of '87,
and that's where I took the first picture of him ever
to be printed in any media.
He was the leader or, as he used to be called,
the emir of the Arab mujahideen in Afghanistan.
[Wright] Osama bin Laden
became Saudi Arabia's first celebrity,
a category that didn't exist in Saudi Arabia
until that time, and I think, to some extent,
Jamal helped him become that person.
[Bishara] Jamal and I,
I mean, I was actually an opinion page writer,
so we would meet every once in a while,
uh, along with other colleagues.
Jamal was one of those important sources,
a treasure, I would say.
He was sitting on this crossroad of relationship
between Saudi Arabia and the United States
fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
But of course, we would take a lot of what he said
with grain of salt because he was, at the time,
associated with the Saudi establishment.
There weren't many Saudi or other journalists
who had access to bin Laden or to those groups.
These were different times.
The United States and Saudi Arabia
celebrated radical Islam
as long as radical Islam
was directly against communism.
[Soufan] I started working on Osama bin Laden
for the National Security Division here in New York.
I read Arabic media,
and I knew of Jamal Khashoggi,
and I knew about his... you know, his-his writings
and his relationship with the Saudi government.
The Saudis had a lot to gain
from promoting Osama bin Laden,
and Jamal was part of that effort.
Afghan jihad made Osama bin Laden.
But the Saudis were not doing their own thing
in Afghanistan.
It was a part of the U.S.'s strategy.
We gave them Stinger missiles, for heaven's sake.
The Saudis were working very closely
with the United States.
They used to come and visit Ronald Reagan
in the White House.
We had recruitment offices here in the United States.
[laughter]
This is when the Saudi interests,
our interests, Osama bin Laden's interests
were all the same:
defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan.
[applause]
On behalf of the American people,
I salute Chairman Khalis,
his delegation,
and the people of Afghanistan themselves.
You are a nation of heroes. God bless you.
[applause]
[Clarke] During the Reagan administration,
I was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
for Intelligence,
and we were very much focused on the war in Afghanistan
on a day-to-day basis, uh,
calculating how many Russian helicopters had been shot down.
They applauded.
The soldiers actually applauded.
[Clarke] We followed the progress
of the mujahideen
in combating the Soviet troops,
and these were really mountain people,
Afghan tribal leaders.
And the only thing we really had in common with them
was, we both wanted to defeat the Soviets.
We had nothing else in common.
[Wright] For the U.S.,
spreading this kind of radical Islam
was not seen in those days as a threat.
It was just a tool.
Thank you very much.
[Wright] No one ever really thought about the aftermath.
[gunfire]
[Rather] The retreat of Soviet military power
from Afghanistan is complete.
Fear and uncertainty were mixed with joy today
as the commander of Soviet troops
followed the last of his men across the border,
leaving the communist Afghan regime alone
to face victorious resistance fighters.
♪ uneasy music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Anas] Those days, those years,
it's the heaven of my life.
I will never regret those days.
♪♪♪♪♪
The mujahideen came to Kabul in one caravan.
I remember-still remember seeing Jamal Khashoggi,
"Oh, brother Abdullah."
Jamal also was excited
because this is the moment he was waiting for, uh,
like the hundreds of Arabs.
[Khashoggi] I approved of the war
against the Soviet Union,
but in 1990 and on, it was not the same.
Al-Qaeda was established around that time,
and I covered Osama bin Laden
when he was, uh, part of, uh, a campaign
which I agreed,
but I saw him change.
Afghanistan had become so ugly.
Abdullah Anas, a friend, he said to me once
that he did not like it very much.
It was full of divisions,
full of envy and poisonous ideas.
I think he was right.
This happiness slowly, slowly started to-to transfer
to a nightmare,
to a funeral,
and then the rockets started coming from everywhere.
So all that dream, gone.
Replaced by civil war.
♪ somber music ♪
[Clarke] If we had just left Afghanistan alone,
in 20/20 hindsight,
I think things might have been better, uh, in the long run.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Brennan] Both within CIA
as well as in the Saudi government,
there was a sense of accomplishment.
There were certainly missteps that had consequences,
uh, negative consequences, whatever,
but, uh, that's history.
♪♪♪♪♪
[jet engine whooshing]
[crowd screaming]
[sirens wailing]
[horns blaring]
[panicked chatter]
[sirens blaring]
[Faris as Khashoggi] I collapsed crying a while ago.
Why did 15 of our young men take part in the attacks?
What can we tell these boys' mothers?
Will we repeat the lie that they were martyred for Islam?
I collapsed crying a while ago,
heartbroken for you, Osama.
You were beautiful and brave
in those beautiful days in Afghanistan
before you surrendered to hatred and rage.
What happened in the last ten years?
We must ensure that our children
can never be influenced by extremist ideas,
like those 15 Saudis
who were misled into hijacking four planes
that fine September day,
piloting them and us
straight into the jaws of hell.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Clarke] A lot of us felt rage,
rage against our own government
that we were part of.
Fifteen of the hijackers were Saudis,
and the warnings were clear,
but they were ignored at the highest levels,
uh, repeatedly,
and the price was enormous.
[indistinct chatter]
[gavel banging]
[Kean] Our next witness is Mr. Richard Clarke,
who served as a former National Coordinator
for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
[Clarke] I think the Saudi government knew
that they were at risk of the American people
and the American Congress and the American media
going after them, uh, for having supported, uh, al-Qaeda.
To the loved ones of the victims of 9/11,
to them who are here in the room,
to those who are watching on television,
your government failed you.
Those entrusted with protecting you failed you.
And I failed you.
[Rhodes] I worked two years for the Democratic
Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission,
and one of the areas of research that I did for him
was Saudi Arabia, and...
and, um, you know,
as someone who witnessed 9/11, who's a New Yorker,
it wasn't just the reality
that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi
but also that a lot of the financing for al-Qaeda
came from wealthy Saudi individuals.
[indistinct chatter]
[Rundell] You gotta remember that the 3,000 dead Americans
were not the result of anything
that the Saudi government did.
You could argue that by supporting
the mujahideen in the first place,
they had encouraged this idea of jihad,
and I think that's-that's fair enough.
So had we.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Wright] I don't know if Jamal had regrets
about his past life.
He did evolve away from things.
Jamal looked at bin Laden with stars in his eyes
when he was young, and then he became disillusioned.
He began to hate what bin Laden had become and...
you know, and what he had done to Saudi society and to Islam.
So he became a Saudi defender
and a supporter of the royal family.
[phone rings]
♪ tense music ♪
[bin Laden] speaking Arabic
[Anas] speaking Arabic
[Salem] Jamal was a loyal Saudi.
And I think how he defined that loyalty over time
clearly evolved and changed,
as did the kingdom itself.
He may have seen it as the least bad option.
I met Jamal when I was working
at the Middle East Institute.
He was like a big teddy bear.
There was just a genuineness.
Always a smile, even in the worst of times.
He, in many ways, was like a big brother to me.
That was our relationship.
[all] speaking Arabic
[Salem] At the time, he worked for the al-Faisals,
who were seen as sort of the intelligentsia
of the royal family.
[Brennan] The Saudis were rather reluctant partners
after 9/11,
but Turki al-Faisal was well-known
for believing strongly in the importance
of a U.S.-Saudi relationship.
He was my counterpart in Saudi Arabia in the '90s.
King Fahd was ill and infirm
and not in day-to-day charge of the government,
and so Turki was determined to make sure
that that relationship between Riyadh and Washington
was going to not just remain strong
but in fact be strengthened.
[applause]
There are those who would have you believe
that the current wave of terrorism
springs from and is or has been
supported by Saudi Arabia.
That is absolutely not true.
[Brennan] After 9/11, Prince Turki
became Saudi ambassador to London.
Jamal was somebody who had a good reputation
in the international media, and I think Turki thought
that Jamal's voice would be a useful one
in trying to battle
this very broad misimpression
of Saudi Arabia as a whole.
[train whistle blows]
♪ gentle music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Wright] I went to London and I met with Turki,
and I spent a lot of time with Jamal there.
He seemed to be enjoying London.
When you are the spokesperson for a senior prince,
you're untouchable.
Jamal was useful to Turki
because he had credibility among reporters, like me.
[Obaid] Jamal and I worked very closely,
first in London and then in D.C.
He was older than me,
and so the joke within the embassy
and within our friends
was that I would call him Uncle J.
We became quite close.
Mornings would start at 7:30.
We'd be the first one at the embassy.
After work, we would usually go have teas.
And in a way, work never ended at the embassy.
He was always the nice guy and I was the bad guy.
I was always giving a hard time to the press,
and it was crisis after crisis after crisis.
On the contrary, the Saudis actually have done
a lot behind the scenes,
but more importantly,
you talked about the American media.
They've been the-they've been the people
that have been raising the issue.
The U.S. administration, the Bush administration
has not at all.
It was very raw.
America was very upset.
We spent a lot of our time defending the Saudi position
vis-à-vis the attacks of 9/11.
The U.S. cannot go accusing people
of financing, uh, terrorism by merely--
[indistinct] by merely unfounded intelligence reports.
[Obaid] You had a Bush administration
that was still very close to Saudi Arabia.
Somebody asked me the other day,
was I pleased with the actions of Saudi Arabia?
I am.
[Obaid] And that was important,
because without that, the U.S.-Saudi relationship
could not have continued.
♪♪♪♪♪
It's up to us to bankrupt the terrorists
and those who finance them so they will never again
have the resources to commit such atrocities
against the American people
as we experienced on September 11th.
[Maloney] The 9/11 families believe,
and we've alleged formally in a complaint
filed in federal court,
that members of the Saudi government
conspired with al-Qaeda
for more than a decade in funding them,
financing them, providing logistical support,
and other means and methods to keep them going.
What we hear from American officials,
they are happy with the cooperation.
They are happy with the information
they are getting from the Saudis.
They are getting plenty of information
about the case of the 15 hijackers.
[Clarke] How did money move to bin Laden?
Did it move through Saudi banks?
Were there wealthy Saudi individuals
who were funding him?
There was a lot of cooperation
that we wanted out of the Saudi government
that we did not get.
[Maloney] Our own government withheld a lot of material
to prevent us from embarrassing the Saudis.
There's obviously a lot of political influence
the Saudis still enjoy in Washington, D.C.,
and they made their best efforts
to prevent this lawsuit from ever seeing the light of day.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Soufan] I don't call Saudi Arabia an ally.
I never called Saudi Arabia an ally.
They always look to cover up what they don't want
the outside world to know
about events and activities
and networks inside the kingdom.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Clarke] You have to remember, this was a government
that was very sympathetic to the Saudi royal family.
And the Bush family had ties going back for decades.
I think the Bush administration's
number one goal after 9/11 was Iraq.
They sat down the first week after 9/11
and said, "Shall we go into Afghanistan first?
Or shall we go into Iraq first?"
I felt like a man from Mars,
and I said to them, "Invading Iraq after 9/11
would be like if Franklin Roosevelt,
after Pearl Harbor, had said,
'Let's invade Mexico.'"
I didn't understand how these very rational senior people
had lost their mind,
and I don't think the Bush administration
could have fought the Iraq War without Saudi support.
[indistinct chatter]
[Bishara] I think Saudi Arabia
became even more indispensable
for the United States.
Jamal Khashoggi and Turki al-Faisal,
they were champions of Saudi-American relations.
Never defended it. Never justified it.
They were champions of it.
[Wright] Jamal was the only Arab I met
who was a supporter of the war.
By the time the U.S. invaded Iraq,
he struck me as a neocon.
He was all in favor of it.
speaking Arabic
[Obaid] He was nationalistic.
He felt very much involved in it,
and so, you know, it's times change,
but a lot of people don't know that side of Jamal.
Jamal took it very personally.
Some of the papers, including The New York Times,
insist on calling him a dissident.
Jamal was...
[Bradley] You've arrested reformers
by the hundreds and the thousands.
No, no, no, reformers, they were never
arrested by the, uh--
Peaceful demonstrators who went into the street,
there were many hundreds of them arrested in Riyadh--
The demonstrators... those demonstrators
were ans-they were answering a call of an al-Qaeda activist.
They were answering the call of Sa'ad Al-Faqih.
They were not peaceful demonstrators.
[Bradley] They were holding Korans above their head,
and they were peaceful demonstrators.
- They were unarmed. - But again,
there were no shooting; they were released.
[Bradley] There was shooting.
They shot rubber bullets over their heads.
The-uh, nobody was killed.
Uh, they were all released.
We don't have this situation where we...
where people demonstrate in the streets and chaos.
No, we don't have any-any of that.
Saudi Arabia is very stable.
♪ tense music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Faris as Khashoggi] A country as proud as Saudi Arabia
doesn't take easily to outside advice.
Yet just because 15 Saudis
committed the biggest terrorist atrocity in history,
some Americans are now calling
for the imposition of a foreign culture
on our Muslim society.
That is why we have to fight back.
Last November, Prince Turki al-Faisal
won a legal battle against the families
of September 11th victims.
This was good news.
The Bush administration
still considers Saudi Arabia a friend.
But we do not know what the future holds.
[Bishara] Jamal's 30 years in Arab media
reflect Saudi relations with the United States
and Arab public opinion.
He championed the cause for American-Saudi cooperation
against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
After 9/11, they worked with the United States
against Saddam Hussein of Iraq
and supported the U.S. war on terror.
At each and every junction
in modern Saudi history
and modern U.S.-Saudi relations,
Jamal was there at that crossroad,
either reporting, explaining, or spinning.
But he was taken by surprise by the Arab Spring.
[crowd] chanting in Arabic
[Bishara] The Arab Spring was indeed a revolution
that shook Saudi Arabia.
It was like an earthquake.
In the past, you could always count on the United States.
But when it came to the Arab Spring,
they could not find help in Washington.
[all] chanting in Arabic
[Bishara] That was unprecedented,
that was unthinkable, and it was so sudden.
[all] chanting in Arabic
[Karman] speaking Arabic
[man] speaking Arabic
[Soltan] It felt like coming home.
Seeing young Arabs
take to the streets
to realize that dream
for self-determination,
for liberty, freedom,
bread, social justice
was my dream coming true,
and I couldn't not take part in it.
[all] chanting in Arabic
♪ light dramatic music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Obaid] When the Arab Spring kicked off,
that was kind of our first open disagreement.
He was for what happened in other countries,
and I was against it.
It called it "the so-called Arab Spring,"
because what does that mean for other countries
of which Saudi Arabia is an ally and a supporter?
♪ dramatic music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Brennan] At the time of the Arab Spring,
King Abdullah was viewed as being somewhat skeptical
of that U.S.-Saudi relationship.
He didn't support everything that the United States did
in the region, and I think there were people
who came in with the Obama administration
who had, oh, I think, a rather jaundiced view,
uh, of Saudi Arabia.
There were problems with the fact
that these governments
kind of couldn't keep a lid on things anymore.
I was in a group of advisors
who were urging President Obama
to try to support a transition to democracy.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
wanted to talk to Obama,
and I remember in that phone call
King Abdullah was absolutely livid about this,
and his basic line was,
everybody in that square
is either a terrorist or an Iranian agent.
Which was just patently not true.
And President Obama called Mubarak and told him,
"Look, I think you need to step down.
I don't think these protests are going to stop."
[all] shouting in Arabic
[Soltan] We were at the presidential palace.
We told the army generals
that after this prayer,
we were going to break through and storm the palace.
We said, "If you open fire on the front line,
there's 50,000 people behind us.
We're getting in regardless."
I remember crying my eyes out because I felt like
this could be my last prayer,
that if they opened fire, you know, this was worth it.
[crowd shouting]
[Soltan] We hear the announcement on the P.A.
[man over P.A. system] speaking Arabic
[crowd cheering wildly]
♪ uplifting music ♪
[all] chanting in Arabic
♪♪♪♪♪
[Soltan] It was the best of Egypt.
And it was the best of the Arab world at that time,
best 18 days of our generation.
- [crowd cheering] - [fireworks popping]
It was...
one hell of a time.
[laughs]
♪ gentle music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Faris as Khashoggi] Egyptians did not need anyone
to teach them how to be free.
I saw them take to it
like a human instinct.
At the time, I was living a new love story
and a new marriage.
Egypt was also living its love story with freedom.
It was the happiest time for both of us.
[Salem] Jamal was a big romantic.
In every sense, a romantic.
You get swept up in it.
Jamal loved strong, intelligent women,
and at the start of the Arab Spring,
he'd married a really wonderful woman, Dr. Alaa.
♪♪♪♪♪
And there is a certain romance to revolutions,
to the idea that you can throw off
the restrictions
that seemed impossible to shake
and that you could think and discuss ideas
that were forbidden before,
and that...that oxygen, I think, is intoxicating.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Obaid] Jamal was very open about how happy he was
that Mubarak had gone down.
But he made a lot of enemies
because of his writing and his tweets,
and I kept telling Jamal, "Stop.
You know, stop."
We had a lot of arguments about it.
King Abdullah kept getting angry at him,
told him, you know, "What you're writing,
you know, relax."
There was a sense of a lot of worry.
I would say the relationship Saudi Arabia had with America
started being very testy.
The Saudis believed,
uh, that we let Mubarak down,
um, that he had been
a very loyal ally for 30 years,
that he had done what we asked him to do many times,
and that at the first sign of trouble,
uh, we threw him under the bus.
[all] chanting in Arabic
Saudi Arabia was paying people to protest.
[all] chanting in Arabic
[Rhodes] And ultimately, this results
in the Egyptian military overthrowing
a democratically elected government
with the backing of Saudi Arabia.
They funded it.
They drove the media strategy behind it.
[Brennan] Saudi Arabia and others were concerned
that the Arab Spring was going to,
uh, go out of control.
Nobody wanted that.
United States didn't want that. Saudi Arabia didn't want that.
[man] It was reported that Egypt's
first democratically elected president
was no longer allowed to leave the country
and that the army was deploying
not just here but on the streets.
♪ dark music ♪
[Rhodes] President Obama, at this point,
is kind of worn down by this,
and we never followed through on a policy
that really prioritized democracy promotion.
Not only was that kind of the death knell
of the Arab Spring, but it was also kind of,
to me, like a pretty cynical,
you know, hypocritical thing.
No, it's not cynical.
See, these are naive-- I don't--
I mean, I hate to tell Mr. Rhodes,
but these are-these are- these are superficial, naive,
and ra-rather fatuous arguments.
Uh, they may sell books.
I hope he does sell a lot of books,
but, um... [chuckles]
...those-those--you know, the role of the Saudis
in global oil markets,
the role of Saudi Arabia in countering,
uh, Islamic terrorism,
you know, do you really want a Saudi Arabia
that looks like, um, you know,
what's happening in Beirut or Syria
or Baghdad or Tehran today?
Is that really what you want?
[indistinct chatter]
[Soltan] When the military coup happened,
there were tens of thousands of people
that came out to protest.
[all] chanting in Arabic
[Soltan] The military and security forces
surrounded Rabaa Square.
[all] chanting in Arabic
[Soltan] They were coming in like it was an armed group
that they were coming to basically ambush.
[artillery firing]
[people shouting]
[car alarms blaring]
♪ desolate music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Soltan] There were people falling,
people by your side.
A bullet could hit you at any time.
[artillery firing]
Shots fired from every direction.
Cars exploding.
[car alarms blaring]
And then I get hit.
People start rushing at me,
and they carry me into a makeshift hospital.
Everybody there was dying.
[all] speaking Arabic
[Soltan] There was this, like, distinct smell
of gunpowder and blood.
[car alarms blaring]
I remember just laying there.
I closed my eyes.
And that moment, I...
I felt so helpless,
so hopeless, I just...
♪♪♪♪♪
Rabaa was the day that the Arab Spring...
that was the nail in the coffin.
[man] It was almost certainly
the single bloodiest day of events
since the start of the Arab Spring.
Egyptian officials say that 525 people were killed,
though opponents say the true number
could be four times as many.
[somber music]
♪♪♪♪♪
There was the temptation to support the revolutions.
I believe it is the right thing to do.
But in my writing, I do my best
to just be a journalist
and not become a revolutionary.
[Wright] The Arab Spring was crushed.
It was destroyed.
And what the Arab Spring stood for in large part
was freedom of expression,
and that had a profound influence on Jamal's thinking.
Suddenly he saw that freedom of expression
was the key to reform in the Arab world
and especially in Saudi Arabia.
[hammers banging]
That's where Al-Arab came from.
Jamal saw the opportunity to create a middle road,
you know, his own channel,
free of government censorship,
but not attacking the royal family all the time,
and he was aided by one particular
royal family member,
Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.
And at first, it seemed like there might be room
for an independent voice in the kingdom.
speaking Arabic
[Obaid] Jamal always had a very good relationship
with Prince Waleed.
You know, the infamous investor, Mr. Citibank,
that made a lot of money.
So, you know, he's a very well-known individual
on the international scene
and has always been an outspoken member
of the Saudi royal family,
but at the same time, again, very much like Jamal,
always very much within the construct
of the loyalty to the king
and to his country and so forth.
[woman] speaking Arabic
[Salem] Jamal was so hopeful about Al-Arab.
He was trying to hire the best and brightest.
Anyone who worked in Arab media knew of him,
and even if you didn't agree
with his positions over time,
it's hard not to admire Jamal.
Stand by, camera one. Stand by, sound.
Cue.
[Fawaz] Al-Arab news channel
was gonna have the best of everything.
Even the owner, Prince Waleed bin Talal,
even he was aiming to be,
if not number one, number two
as-as-as-as a start.
[Al Shaikhli] Jamal was very confident
of the vision of the station
and that he had the backing of the royal family.
We were all ready to launch on the first of February, 2015,
and everybody had that energy.
You know, when the... when you launch a station,
there's always this... an energy that comes with it.
[Salem] For Jamal, there was so much hope.
Al-Arab was his last great passion project.
[woman] speaking Arabic
In six, five,
four, three, two, one.
Go, [indistinct].
♪ exciting music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
speaking Arabic
[exciting news theme]
[cheers and applause]
[Fawaz] I turned around, and I said, "Jamal, we did it.
You can relax now."
speaking Arabic
I had my show at eleven o'clock at night.
I went back home, thinking, "Okay,
tomorrow we have to get up; tomorrow's the next day.
We have to start again."
[Fawaz] I had my phone ringing.
I look at the phone, I said, "Shit."
[Al Shaikhli] Gentlemen came to the station,
to the master control room, and they said
we need to stop the broadcast.
[Fawaz] They are really asking us to shut down.
We can't have anything on the air.
They ask to broadcast just black.
[high-pitched tone]
And, uh, that was it.
[man] Just three days before the shutdown,
a new king took the throne.
Was that transition the issue?
[inhales deeply, sighs]
Um...
yep.
That-that was it. That was it.
♪ tense music ♪
[people cheering]
♪♪♪♪♪
[Rundell] King Abdullah dies,
and the new king is Salman, and no one really expects
there to be any profound change.
But within the first 60 days,
things began to change pretty quickly.
The king, first thing he did was,
he made his son the defense minister,
and he began to pretty radically change
the way the Saudi government was structured.
[Soufan] King Salman wanted to cut the wings
of anyone else in the royal family
and keep everything inside his own immediate family,
especially his son.
[Rhodes] Mohammed bin Salman was not even 30 years old.
He was basically an unknown commodity,
so there was something fishy
about the whole thing from the start.
- [all] chanting in Arabic - [drums beating]
[Rundell] Many people, myself included,
recognized that this was potentially
a very dangerous and difficult transition.
[drums beating]
I tend to think that Saudi Arabia
is more stable most of the time
than most people do,
but even I certainly recognized
that this was a real potential problem.
[Rhodes] You had this sense of foreboding
of, what's gonna happen here?
We were concerned.
- [drums beating] - [crowd cheering]
♪ uneasy music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Wright] King Salman's first act of censorship
was shutting down Al-Arab.
And Jamal, I think,
was caught short by it.
And it's notable that the enforcer
of this first act of censorship
was a man named Saud al-Qahtani.
[woman vocalizing]
♪♪♪♪♪
[Obaid] Saud al-Qahtani came into the royal court
as a media secretary,
and then his relationship evolved there
and he basically starting attacking,
organizing campaigns against columnists, journalists,
what have you.
But more will come out on Saud al-Qahtani's role
in the future, because he ended up being
quite influential.
Al-Qahtani would tell the editors
what they can write and what they cannot write,
telling them, "Put this on the front page.
Put this on the front," and Jamal,
he was very uncomfortable with it.
I mean, you're a journalist.
Imagine if every two minutes, someone's sending you
a message from the White House telling you, you know,
"Don't write this. Write this.
Put this on the front. You can't take this"--
I mean, this is what was happening.
[Rhodes] It was 2016, and MBS had really started
getting his hands onto the press.
And there was a group in Yemen
who have always been antagonists of Saudi Arabia.
And so MBS, as defense minister,
basically decides to go into Yemen
and take these-these guys on.
speaking Arabic
[jet engine roaring]
[Rhodes] The Saudi invasion of Yemen
would never happen without MBS.
MBS was using the invasion of Yemen
as a means of consolidating power,
as a means of getting the armed forces
really under him.
[explosion booms]
[woman] To Yemen now, breaking overnight,
Yemen erupting, and Saudi Arabia,
backed by a ten-nation coalition,
launching air strikes.
The U.S. is providing
logistical and intelligence support.
- [explosion booms] - [person shrieks]
[Soufan] The war in Yemen was essential
to the rise of Mohammed bin Salman.
And they thought that they can go to Yemen
couple of month, finish the war,
declare victory,
and then he will be the person
who is liked, loved, admired
in the Sunni Muslim world.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Karman] speaking Arabic
[men] speaking Arabic
[explosion booms]
[child] speaking Arabic
♪ somber music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Wright] Tens of thousands of people have been killed.
They've bombed hospitals,
UN facilities, refugee camps.
Fifty thousand children have starved to death.
America has assisted in this genocide.
Not only have we supplied the weapons,
we refueled the bombers and the fighter planes.
We trained them.
In the Arab world, it's known as
the Saudi-American War on Yemen.
♪ dramatic music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Rhodes] The war in Yemen
was a real humanitarian catastrophe.
There had been other issues that we were aware of.
Saudi Arabia had detained a number of bloggers
and journalists.
They'd also had a mass execution of Shia,
including some prominent Shia clerics.
[Anas] speaking Arabic
[man] shouting in Arabic
[person wails]
[Rhodes] Our last trip was in April of 2016.
- [indistinct chatter] - [camera shutters clicking]
Thank you very much, Your Majesty.
[Rhodes] President Obama started to urge King Salman
to release some of these bloggers
and journalists, and with that...
[man] Mr. President...
[Rhodes] ...MBS stands up
and begins to lecture President Obama, saying,
"You don't understand the Saudi justice system.
Maybe we can get you a briefing on the Saudi justice system
and how it works."
This was a very aggressive presentation,
and I've-I've never seen anything like this.
I mean, it's very unusual for anybody
other than the president's interlocutor to talk at all.
It's certainly unusual for them to stand up
and kind of lecture the president of the United States.
Thank you for your hospitality.
[applause]
[Rhodes] Our view was, they're clearly
waiting for whoever's next.
[crowd chanting "U.S.A.!"]
[man] It is my high honor to introduce to you
the president of the United States of America,
Donald Trump.
[crowd cheering]
[message chirps]
[Trump] I'm with you, the American people.
[Obaid] So Jamal put out a series of tweets
being critical of Trump,
and then we got a warning.
There was an official statement put out
by the foreign ministry where they basically said
that Jamal and I didn't represent
the Saudi government, pft,
which is, okay, fine,
but that, I took as, you know,
things are different now.
You know, there's new guys in town.
Uh, it's time to be quiet.
♪ dark music ♪
[Kandil] speaking Arabic
[Obaid] Saud al-Qahtani called him.
Told him, "You can't write. You can't speak.
You can't tweet. You can't do anything."
And I said, "Let's just stop this.
There's no point in continuing.
Clearly, we've become persona non grata."
Jamal was very upset about it.
He had a big name. He was like, "What do I do?"
[woman] What will you do?
Like, will you be able to go back to Saudi Arabia?
In principle, I can,
uh, but when I, uh, see how many of my colleagues ended,
either, uh, jailed or banned from travel, uh,
I-I-I...
uh, I think otherwise.
♪ dramatic music ♪
[Kandil] speaking Arabic
[jet engine roaring]
[Salem] Jamal messaged me from a new U.S. number.
He dropped off some bags to hold at my apartment.
It's hard for me to talk about Jamal
leaving Saudi Arabia because...
it pained him
literally until the end.
[sniffles]
♪♪♪♪♪
Alaa was so upset with him,
and she had choices to make
because she had a travel ban
placed on her.
And it was impossible to reconcile
because there was no way out of this.
As long as she was married to him,
there was no other option.
[jet engines whooshing]
The thing that I hope that Alaa knows
is how much he loved her
and regretted the end of their marriage.
[Wright] Jamal and I were talking on the phone,
and he was very lonely.
You could see that he was-he was...
he had made a huge sacrifice in his personal life.
[Khashoggi] Unfortunately, many think the people
of the Arab world are not ready yet
for that luxury of choosing their own leader,
and that's what we are lacking until today.
[Wright] Can I just jump in, one thing?
We shouldn't pass too quickly over some of these reforms
being very important to the future of that country...
But it was surprising to me
that we had such different takes
on Mohammed bin Salman.
I saw him as a reformer.
[Bartiromo] Let me introduce the vision
behind something of a revolution.
Please welcome to the stage, ladies and gentlemen,
His Royal Highness
Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
[applause]
[Rhodes] I found it to be utterly bizarre
that at a time when this guy
is clearly cracking down on dissent,
is, you know, involved in this kind of
rash war in Yemen that is killing people
and precipitating famine,
that he's getting great press in the United States.
[man] Begin with Saudi Aramco, a strong public debut
after raising a record 25.6 billion in the IPO.
[Rhodes] But of course, the U.S. business community
was drooling over, you know, an Aramco public offering
that could be worth trillions of dollars.
Mohammed bin Salman was vetted in Washington,
New York City, Hollywood,
Silicon Valley.
Every major aspect
of American power
rolled out the red carpet for this guy.
Mohammed bin Salman is a trillionaire,
and that's all these people saw.
Jamal Khashoggi's voice was important,
because it was one of the only dissenting voices.
I still see him as a reformer,
but he is gathering all power within his hand,
and it would be much better for him
to allow a breathing space for critic,
for Saudi intellectuals, Saudi writers,
Saudi media to debate.
Uh, we've become very good friends
over a fairly short period of time,
and we are bringing back hundreds of billions of dollars
into the United States...
[Wright] Trump recognized a kinship.
They're rich and entitled people.
They found common ground.
And the kingdom saw him as a benefactor,
a kind of stooge they could use.
...million dollars, that's peanuts for you.
[chuckles]
Thank you, Mr. President.
[Wright] And so Mohammed bin Salman
became Trump's man,
Trump's man in the Middle East.
[jet engine whooshing]
[brass horns blaring]
♪♪♪♪♪
[Rhodes] Trump's first trip as president
is to Saudi Arabia, which is totally bizarre.
I mean, uh, every U.S. president
goes to Canada or Mexico.
To go to Saudi Arabia on your first trip...
[chuckles] ...this-this is insane.
♪♪♪♪♪
And when I saw that famous picture
of Trump and Sisi and King Salman
with, like, the orb, I mean, it...
♪ dramatic music ♪
...that said it all.
You know, Egypt's General Sisi
is a brutal dictator,
and King Salman killed
the promise of the Arab Spring.
So clearly, Trump was for sale.
I mean, the Saudi ambassadors are going around here
telling everybody that they've got
Jared and Ivanka in their pocket.
- [men] chanting in Arabic - [drums beating]
[Rhodes] Whatever MBS's wish list was,
Trump was saying yes to.
So it was pretty clear that there's
going to come a point of reckoning.
♪ tense music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Anas] speaking Arabic
[woman] The massive purge of princes
and one of the world's best-known billionaires
all arrested by a man who would be a king,
a man emboldened by President Trump.
[Wright] On November 4, 2017,
these raids took place all over Saudi Arabia.
[people yelling]
Many of the most prominent businessmen,
intellectuals were rounded up, hundreds of them,
and put in the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.
♪♪♪♪♪
And they were held for weeks,
interrogated, tortured.
Many of them were hospitalized.
One guy, his neck was broken.
His body was covered with electrical burns.
He was a general.
They were shaken down by Mohammed bin Salman's man,
Saud al-Qahtani.
That was a coup.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Soufan] Saudi Arabia had different factions
inside the royal family.
Each one of these factions have connections
to economic elite, to business elite.
You have the religious establishment.
But Mohammed bin Salman decided
that there's only one faction
in the house of Saud, and it's him.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Salem] The ripple effect from Al-Waleed
being arrested was tremendous.
Stock prices moved.
It was seismic.
Prince Al-Waleed is an important investor,
the most well-known member of the royal family
outside the kingdom,
very firmly within the center of power.
[Wright] Prince Al-Waleed had been Jamal's patron.
And suddenly, you see on TV that he is powerless.
This is my Diet Pepsi.
[Wright] He is praising his kidnapper
and telling everybody
that he's been treated very well.
And all these rumors really upset me.
- [woman] Okay. - I mean, because now,
they-they went so far.
All lies.
You know, I've been always, uh,
all the time here, at this hotel,
and, um, everything has been fine.
[Wright] When I talked to Jamal last,
he said he got out just in time.
He would no doubt have been in the Ritz-Carlton,
maybe in far worse circumstances.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Kandil] speaking Arabic
♪♪♪♪♪
[El-Atr] Jamal was very sad.
He lost hope.
I said, "No, take it easy.
You're free now.
You can express your opinion.
You have a freedom,
because not to say your opinion
about what's happening, that will kill you."
♪ somber music ♪
I know Jamal for ten years.
And we become closer and closer.
I have a habit to wake him up every day
seven o'clock in the morning because he was lonely.
He was isolated.
♪♪♪♪♪
This went for a while
until the middle of 2017,
he sent to me a message.
He said, "Hanan, come and stay with me.
Come, and they won't see you."
♪♪♪♪♪
I was very happy.
He's the man I wished,
but I didn't have a courage to express it before
because he was married.
First time I managed to come and see him,
it was to celebrate his birthday in March.
Well, it was his half-birthday party in March,
and he was dating
a really wonderful woman.
It was always fun to have Jamal happy.
[El-Atr] When we got married,
it was the most beautiful day in my life,
and I will never forget.
♪♪♪♪♪
I think I'm in a dream.
♪♪♪♪♪
But he was very loyal to the Kingdom of Saudi,
so he was feeling very bad because he lost his hope.
♪♪♪♪♪
He decide he have to express himself.
[Soltan] Fall of 2017,
Jamal was in self-imposed exile.
We met,
and he gave me the biggest bear hug.
It was really, really warm, and then he started crying.
He said, "I left my country.
I left my family behind for freedom,
just to be free.
And no one knows what that feels like more than you."
♪ ♪
I learned later
that his first Washington Post article
was published that hour.
[Faris as Khashoggi] "Saudi Arabia wasn't always
this repressive," by Jamal Khashoggi.
♪ dramatic music ♪
We spend endless hours on the phone
trying to understand the wave of arrests.
Are we going to be the core of the Saudi diaspora?
Al-Hayat canceled my column.
The government banned me from Twitter.
I spent six months silent,
reflecting on the stark choices before me.
Years ago, when several friends were arrested,
I said nothing.
I have made a different choice now.
I have left my home,
my family, and my job,
and I am raising my voice.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Obaid] He wrote that first piece.
Next day, his ex-wife calls me,
says, "Look what he just did."
Which, I was like, "But, Jamal, we just talked.
What's going on?"
Clearly, something had gone very wrong.
He had kept this very secret.
That shocked a lot of us,
and when it came to Saudi Arabia,
I always believed that his loyalty was strong
to his country and to his king.
I felt that I had been betrayed.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Bishara] Jamal expressed his opinion
from Washington, the seat of power,
writing in the voice of empire,
The Washington Post.
That could not be tolerated.
[Obaid] He started writing this, saying these things,
and then all these weird people
started getting to know him.
You know, uh, started to, you know, hang around with him,
tweet things about him.
It became very bizarre.
[dark music]
♪♪♪♪♪
[Maloney] Mr. Khashoggi was publishing articles
that were critical of the Saudi regime,
and so we called him to request a meeting.
Jamal Khashoggi knew a lot of information
about al-Qaeda and Saudi support for al-Qaeda.
So we wanted to talk to him.
The meeting with our investigator
was the morning of October 26th
in the Virginia area.
This was a preliminary meeting.
It became clear that Mr. Khashoggi
had a lot to say.
[Wright] The morning that he's going to meet
with the investigator, he gets a call from his son
in Saudi Arabia saying that their travel permits
had been taken away.
So essentially, the Saudi authorities
know that he's meeting with this investigator,
and his children are being held hostage.
[Maloney] The first thing Mr. Khashoggi indicated
was the recent news about his son's
inability to travel, which upset him.
I used to be a federal prosecutor,
and we had informants that elected to testify
against their coconspirators.
If Jamal Khashoggi had been an insider,
and he was, and had information
that could be helpful to us
and was willing to meet with us and discuss it,
that is a serious threat to the Saudi government.
The question is, to what extent
was the Saudi government and the royal family
entangled with al-Qaeda?
Well, they were.
Going back before al-Qaeda,
they were funding the mujahideen,
and King Salman was the principal bundler
of all these contributions to the mujahideen
and then later to al-Qaeda.
- [men chanting] - [drums beating]
Jamal would have known about that.
Jamal worked with Prince Turki,
who had been the head of intelligence,
and he facilitated these meetings
with bin Laden in Afghanistan.
And who knows what bin Laden told him?
I mean, is there a person in the whole world
that knows more about this relationship
than Jamal Khashoggi?
I don't think so.
[chuckling]
[Maloney] The Saudis claimed that they enjoyed immunity
even if all our allegations were true.
They hired lobbyists in Washington,
and Saud al-Qahtani's name appears on some of the forms.
His official title had something to do
with media and public relations,
but the easiest way to describe him
is-is MBS's henchman.
Qahtani, on behalf of the crown prince,
hired the lobbyists
specifically to kill this lawsuit.
Jamal Khashoggi agreed to a follow-up meeting.
He agreed to come to our office here in New York.
What he would say and what he would be willing to disclose,
we'll never know.
♪ tense music ♪
[brakes squealing]
[messages chirping]
[Salem] Saud al-Qahtani unleashed hell on Jamal--
the trolls, the bots, whatever they are,
the turning of friends and former colleagues--
all of that.
He was threatened and intimidated all the time.
Of course it was orchestrated.
And Jamal knew that.
[Soltan] It was November of 2017.
We were on our way to grab dinner,
and he says, "Guess what.
Saud al-Qahtani sent me a DM on Twitter.
Yeah, he wants to talk."
And you can hear the fear in his voice.
He answers the call, puts it on speaker.
Saud al-Qahtani starts off,
says, "I am calling on behalf of His Royal Highness
Mohammed bin Salman.
He's watching. He follows your work."
So Jamal, he says,
"Please send my warmest regards
to His Royal Highness
and convey to him
that when there are positive reforms happening,
we will most definitely welcome them.
When there are transgressions, we will be critical."
This was a moment that I realized
this is a noble man; this is a courageous man.
This man was very serious
about the evolution that he was making.
[birds chirping]
[El-Atr] If you hear Jamal was faithful
to the Kingdom of Saudi, this is the truth.
He used to defend them.
But he think his duty is to advise,
to say his opinion
before things lead to a bad stage.
[Soltan] Jamal had asked me to be on the lookout,
kind of play matchmaker. [chuckles]
And I tried; I tried connecting him to someone.
♪♪♪♪♪
He was very, very lonely.
He had just gotten a divorce.
I didn't know about Hanan.
[El-Atr] After we got married,
Jamal want to spend as much time together.
He doesn't want anyone to take him away from me,
and that's why we don't even like
to go and spend long time out.
We want to be just together away from people.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Soltan] If you interview anybody that tells you
that they know every aspect of Jamal's life,
they are 100% lying to you.
Jamal chose what information
he shared with each person.
This will be broadcasted in a few days,
not, uh, right away, right?
[woman] It'll be, um--
It'll go on air, uh, Tuesday night, actually,
the night that, um, MBS is in Washington.
- All right. - It will be after...
after MBS has met, uh, Trump.
All right.
[Soltan] He knew what the stakes were,
and knowing all of those stakes
and then still deciding to go ahead
and speak freely
was very courageous of him.
[woman] And why did you self-exile?
I just felt, uh, whatever narrow space I had
was getting narrower, and I just thought
it was better for me to leave.
And, uh, actually, right after I left, uh,
arrests began to happen.
Many of my acquaintances, friends, colleagues
were rounded up, and, uh-uh,
I-I always regret being away from home,
but when, uh-uh, I see what happened to them,
I-I think I did the right choice, uh,
even though it is very hurtful to be away from home.
[Soltan] My way of consoling him was,
"Don't worry.
There's a lot of people like you.
There's an entire community of folks in exile.
And so you'll find comfort in that community."
♪ uneasy music ♪
But he didn't find that community
out here in Washington.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Karman] speaking Arabic
[Faris as Khashoggi] June 5, 2018,
in this age of error,
an Arab intellectual rushes to praise the prisons,
to write against the Spring.
Another burns the last of his history
and his forbidden books.
He says, "We are not ready
for democracy and freedom."
It anguishes me to speak with other Saudi friends
in Istanbul who are also in self-exile.
I expect that I will still wake up every morning
and ponder the choice I have made
to speak my mind.
We are being asked to abandon any hope
of political freedoms.
This is a Faustian bargain that I will not make.
We are the kingdom of silence no longer.
[somber music]
♪♪♪♪♪
[El-Atr] Jamal in this time, he was in Istanbul.
Istanbul, it's very open city
for different Arabic background,
and there is a lot of activity there.
He always go, and he have friends there.
[Soltan] I called him when he was in Istanbul,
and he said, "By the way, I might be doing
three weeks in Istanbul, three weeks in D.C."
So then I was like, "Oh, it looks like you found someone."
And then he was like, "Yeah, I did.
I really like her.
We're gonna get married soon.
I'll tell you all about it when I get back."
♪ somber music ♪
[Salem] I didn't know about Hatice.
I knew about Hanan.
But I-I didn't know they had gotten married.
So I'll say this.
I think if you understand the loneliness of that man
in that last year...
♪♪♪♪♪
...I think things that you can judge
so easily from outside...
...become a bit more nuanced.
♪♪♪♪♪
[El-Atr] Last call between me and Jamal,
he called to wish me happy birthday.
My birthday is 30 September,
which is two days before he disappear.
[Salem] He messaged from Istanbul.
He said to me, "What if I just go away to a desert island
for a couple weeks, couple years?"
You know, he would-he would come to me and say things like
he was doubting his resolve, and he knew how I would react.
You know, a slap to the head.
"Jamal."
I remember saying these words,
'cause they will forever haunt me.
I said, "You are in a war,
and you can't give up.
You can't disappear."
Those are the last words
I said to him,
and I had no idea
what I was even talking about.
♪♪♪♪♪
So on the 28th of September,
uh, Jamal Khashoggi and his fiancée, Hatice,
go to the consulate to get
an administrative piece of paper for their marriage.
They tell him to come back
on the second of October and that on that day,
they'll have the document that he needs.
♪♪♪♪♪
So the Turkish authorities had somehow bugged
the Saudi consulate,
and almost immediately, there are phone calls
between the consulate in Istanbul
and, uh, Riyadh.
And in the first call,
it's a security attaché
who speaks to an intelligence officer, Mutreb.
Mutreb explained that Mr. Jamal Khashoggi
is indeed someone that is being "sought"
and that they should proceed
with some kind of, uh-of mission.
♪ suspenseful music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
This special operation
involved 15 people.
Saud al-Qahtani met the team
before they left for Turkey
on the Saudi government's private plane.
♪♪♪♪♪
And Mutreb was leading the team,
and like every other member of the kill team,
he's a member of the Saudi intelligence.
Mutreb in particular
had accompanied the crown price
on some of this missions,
and he was someone who worked closely
with Saud al-Qahtani.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Obaid] Yes, it was Maher.
Maher was a, uh... was an intelligence officer
that worked at the Saudi embassy
in, uh, London at that time.
He was there when we were there,
and, uh, I introduced them at one of our
afternoon teas together.
We were colleagues more than anything,
you know, and from time to time, Maher would join us.
To be fair, he was a nice guy.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Callamard] Jamal Khashoggi enters the consulate at 1:14.
He is directed to the office of the consul.
♪♪♪♪♪
He enters and finds many people in that room,
and so you can hear surprise
because Mutreb
and Jamal Khashoggi knew each other.
So when Jamal entered the consul office
and saw Mutreb, he did express some surprise,
but he welcomes Mutreb in fairly warm terms.
The conversation turns very quickly.
Mutreb is saying, "Don't make it difficult for us."
And you can hear the fear
in the voice of Jamal Khashoggi.
[Kandil] speaking Arabic
♪ tense music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Callamard] The doctor himself explained to Mutreb
that it will be easy to dismember the body.
Joints will be separated. It should not be a problem.
[saw whirring, plastic crinkling]
[whirring slows, stops]
At 3 p.m.,
CCTV captured people
leaving the consulate with plastic bags
with the remain of Mr. Khashoggi.
The body parts were carried out
in several bags and handed over
to other individuals who carried them
into the car.
And at 3:50, those same camera
record a member of the kill team
leaving the consulate accompanied by someone else.
This man puts on Jamal Khashoggi's clothes,
puts a fake beard.
Could not put on the shoes.
They didn't fit.
And it was the shoes that prompted
the intelligence, uh, services
when they reviewed all the CCTV
to say that's not Jamal.
But this is meant to pretend
that Khashoggi left the consulate,
and we do not know
where Jamal remains are.
speaking Arabic
♪ suspenseful music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[all] chanting in Arabic
♪♪♪♪♪
[all] chanting in Arabic
[Brennan] Knowing what I know about Saudi Arabia,
there is no way that that horrific act
was carried out without the blessing
and direction from the very top of the Saudi government.
There's just no way.
[man] Senators from both sides of the aisle
are receiving the CIA briefing they have been demanding.
There's not a smoking gun. There's a smoking saw.
You have to be willfully blind
not to come to the conclusion
that this was orchestrated and organized
by people in-under the command of MBS.
[woman] Mr. President, why are you siding
with the Saudis over your own intelligence community?
Because it's America first to me.
It's all about America first.
We're not gonna give up hundreds of billions of dollars
in orders and let Russia, China,
and everybody else have them.
It's all about, for me, very simple,
it's America first.
♪♪♪♪♪
[Rhodes] Saudi Arabia can't exist
without the United States.
Their security guarantor for decades
has been the United States.
The U.S. was in some way responsible
for this man's death,
because the sense of impunity
we give Mohammed bin Salman
with this red carpet treatment that he got
and the embrace from Trump
and nobody really pushing back,
I think he thought he could get away with anything,
and he was right.
And it's just disgusting to see him
kind of grinning and shaking hands with this guy
who just chopped up another human being.
♪♪♪♪♪
[camera shutters clicking]
[Bass] Good afternoon, everyone.
This hearing for the Subcommittee
on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights,
and International Organizations will come to order.
I note that a quorum is present.
[gavel bangs]
[Rundell] We have both political and economic reasons
to maintain a relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally,
and I do think that outweighs the death of one person.
Yes, it does.
So there's a paid political commercial
for Mohammed bin Salman, but, uh, you know,
I-I believe that, so any event, there you go.
I thought that needed to be said.
[Bass] Ms. Cengiz.
[Hatice sighs]
speaking Arabic
♪ somber music ♪
[sobbing]
Oh, Jamal.
[indistinct chatter]
[Kandil] speaking Arabic
♪♪♪♪♪
[Salem] The best justice for him is a young person
reading his writing,
knowing about him...
♪♪♪♪♪
...being sure that those that want him to be forgotten,
that they will not win.
♪♪♪♪♪
Well, you know, Jamal was a friend and, uh...
...America and the kingdom
have a toxic relationship,
and it poisons not only our own societies,
but it's spread all over the world.
The chaos, the wars--
America's had a big hand in that.
And Jamal's been in the middle of that
from his earliest days.
He embodied, in some ways, that relationship.
But this contradiction
became so nakedly obvious, you had to choose.
Which side are you on?
♪ dramatic music ♪
♪♪♪♪♪
[Faris as Khashoggi] The revolution is over.
Its most important values--
freedom, dignity, and the right to life--
have fallen by the wayside.
The majority is unmoved by the sight of the dead
when they belong to the other side.
Divisions have even emerged
between the detained, the refugee, the cynic,
and the dead that were never celebrated as martyrs.
I can imagine a young man returning home,
exhausted and bloodied.
He weeps for his dead brethren.
Before going to bed after Thursday's dawn prayers,
the young man murmurs to himself,
"The revolution is not over yet."
The will of the people is still the law.
A new generation must take the lead
and look to the future, not the past.
One of the most beautiful things I have ever heard
is the call of the Prophet.
In the beginning, it is a call to freedom.
That dream of freedom is alive in us,
ready to emerge again
with the first sounds of emancipation.
[somber, stirring music]
♪♪♪♪♪