The widow of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi has urged Joe Biden to press the case of political prisoners if he meets with the Saudi leader accused by US intelligence of murdering her husband.
Hanan El-Atr said if the US president proceeds with what would be a highly controversial meeting with crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman – on the campaign trail Mr Biden denounced Saudi Arabia and said it should be made a “pariah nation” – he should use it to press the causes that were so important to her late husband.
“As his only wife upon his death, it is important to me that Jamal’s legacy of freedom and tolerance outlive his death,” she writes in an open letter shared with The Independent.
“Jamal was more than a Washington Post reporter, he was my loving husband, a proud father of four, and a doting grandfather of three.”
In the letter, written on what would have been their fourth wedding anniversary, she adds: “I recently read that you may travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with HRH Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. If you do, please remember what Jamal wanted most in this world: the release of all political prisoners being held in Saudi Arabia, including Jamal’s close friend, Essam Al-Zamil. Those prisoners must not suffer the fate of Jamal, or his two close friends who died in prison.”
Mr Zamil, a journalist, was jailed for 15 years in 2020.
Ms El-Atr’s husband, 57, a celebrated journalist and most recently a columnist for the Washington Post, was murdered in October 2018 after entering the Saudi consulate, apparently in order to obtain a visa. It emerged he had been planning to visit Saudi Arabia and he had gone to the consulate that day with Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish student to whom he had apparently proposed marriage.
It emerged Khashoggi had been murdered by a 12-person-strong hit team, and his body dismembered by a bone saw. It was alleged he had been murdered on the orders of the highest level of the Saudi state, after falling out with the authorities.
Saudi Arabia has denies the accusations and claimed he had been killed by “rogue” officials.
A report published in 2019 by Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, said Saudi Arabia was responsible for “premeditated execution”.
In February 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said MBS had approved the operation to capture and kill Khashoggi.
It has also been alleged that Ms El-Atr’s phones were targeted by an NSO Group spyware programme known as Pegasus. NSO Group has denied its spyware was involved in the murder of the commentator and broadcaster, or that his family members were monitored. The phone of Ms Cengiz was also targetted by spyware.
On the campaign trail president, Mr Biden, 79, said the US would take a much tougher line with Saudi Arabia. He also decided to make public the intelligence report his predecessor, Donald Trump, kept secret.
Yet, Mr Biden ultimately decided not to sanction the crown prince, given the assessment he would likely soon become its leader, and remain so for many decades.
Following the incision of Ukraine and the effort to try and cut off Russia’s oil exports, Mr Biden now needs Saudi Arabia to increase its output of oil, as raising gasoline prices and rocketing inflation threaten to worsen what are likely to be difficult midterm elections for Democrats.
This week, the Washington Post reported Mr Biden would meet with MBS later this month on a visit to the region.
“Biden plans to visit Riyadh in late June, after a stop in Israel to meet with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett,” it said.
“While in Saudi Arabia, this year’s host of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the president is likely to see leaders of other friendly Arab countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar. But the emotional centerpiece will be Biden’s handshake with MBS, as the Saudi crown prince is known.”
The White House has not confirmed that Mr Biden is to meet the crown prince.
A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Independent, there was no travel plan to announce, but kept the door open for such a meeting.
“If [Mr Biden] determines that it’s in the interests of the United States to engage with a foreign leader and that such an engagement can deliver results, then he’ll do so,” said the official.
“There’s also no question that – as with many countries where we share interests – we have concerns about its human rights record and past conduct, much of which predated our administration. And we raise those concerns with them, as we do with others.”
On Friday, the official did not immediately respond to questions of whether Mr Biden would raise the issue of political prisoners or indeed, the murder of Mr Khashsoggi.
In her letter, Ms El-Atr said she wanted all parties to be “held accountable for my husband’s death, including the Governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the NSO Group. Accountability may help me in reaching some sort of closure.”
The United Arab Emirates has always denied any wrong doing in association with the murder of Khashoggi or the surveillance of his wife. Its embassy in Washington DC did not respond to inquiries.
Neither the Saudi embassy or its foreign ministry responded.
The NSO Group did not immediately respond. Previously it has said: “As NSO has previously stated, our technology was not associated in any way with the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi or any of his family members, including Hanan El-Atr. Publishing these false statements is defamatory and won’t change the reality.”
In her letter Ms El-Atr says she was “proud to have been Jamal’s wife, and now his widow”.
“I will continue to honour his legacy today and everyday as a wonderful family man, husband and journalist,” she says.
“I hope you do so as well when you travel to Saudi Arabia. In the words of my late husband - ‘Speak your conscience, to do otherwise would betray those who cannot speak for themselves’.”
