To Mike Pompeo: Stop Insulting Khashoggi!
Together for Justice strongly condemns US former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after he dismissed in his new book what he called “faux outrage” surrounding Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.
Pompeo, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, wrote about Khashoggi in his new book, titled “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love”.
Pompeo sharply criticizes the media’s coverage of Khashoggi’s killing, saying that outlets portrayed him as “a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward” and referred to the aftermath of his death as “faux outrage … fueled by the media.”
Bob Woodward is an American investigative journalist, who is considered one of the best reporters of his generation. However, Pompeo argues, Khashoggi was “an activist who had supported the losing team”.
Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, was brutally murdered on 2 October 2018 at a Saudi Embassy in Turkey. US intelligence and the UN have determined that Khashoggi’s killing was an assassination approved by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. His remains have not been found.
Citing New York Times reporting, Pompeo accuses Khashoggi of being “cosy with the terrorist-supporting Muslim Brotherhood.”
The crime took place during the Trump era, during which Pompeo was a part of it. At that time, the Trump administration prevented an intelligence report condemning MBS.
Trump also provided MBS immunity in face of any Congress prosecution. “I saved his ass,” Trump had said after he protected the Crown Prince from any international accountability.
Pompeo also tried to discredit Jamal Khashoggi in his book, accusing him of expressing sorrow for the death of Osama bin Laden.
Pompeo used the same claims earlier declared by MBS when asked about Khashoggi in his interview with The Atlantic.
US successive administrations have failed to hold MBS legal accountability for Khashoggi’s murder, giving the Saudi regime a green light to commit further human rights violations and abuses against political opponents and activists.
Biden has earlier pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state over Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, but he later granted him sovereign immunity in the matter after Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, filed a civil lawsuit against the crown prince for ordering the killing.
As he declares his intention to run for the 2024 presidential elections, Mike Pompeo adopted the Saudi regime’s narrative about Khashoggi’s killing, effectively ending any attempt to hold the Saudi crown prince legally accountable for the journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.
