The Khashoggi report is a wake-up call for UN and US (Opinion)
CNNEditor’s Note: Dr. Courtney C. Radsch is the advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists. Courtney Radsch Committee to Protect Journalists Given these findings, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres should immediately launch a criminal investigation, as the Committee to Protect Journalists requested last November, and comply with the recommendations of its independent expert. Callamard conducted extensive interviews and reviewed intelligence information in Turkey – which is the world’s leading jailer of journalists, according to CPJ, but has leveraged international attention on Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to burnish its image – in the US and in Europe, though she was not granted access to Saudi Arabia. The UN report says Saudi Arabia is responsible for the extrajudicial killing and that the Crown Prince should face sanctions, confirming what a 2018 US intelligence assessment already indicated. The US and the EU have already issued targeted sanctions, but the moves lack transparency about why specific individuals were targeted or the rationale for the decision, and the report notes that none of the targets can be considered a “senior official.” The call for sanctions against the Crown Prince is reasonable given the near-unanimous view of Saudi experts that the murder could not have been carried out without his awareness, at the very least.