NOT EXACTLY SUBTLE

Saudi Official Ominously Threatened to ‘Take Care’ of UN’s Khashoggi Investigator

Agnès Callamard was investigating Jamal Khashoggi’s slaying at the hands of Saudi government agents when the comment was made.

When you’re being investigated by the United Nations for a brutal murder, it’s probably best not to threaten to kill the person doing the investigating. But, according to Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur who was tasked with investigating Jamal Khashoggi’s slaying at the hands of Saudi government agents, that’s exactly what happened to her. Callamard told The Guardian that, in January 2020, a senior Saudi official threatened to have her “taken care of” if she didn’t stop asking difficult questions. She wasn’t at the meeting, but the comment was made in front of other UN officials at an official event in Geneva. Asked how the comment was perceived by her colleagues, Callamard told the newspaper: “A death threat. That was how it was understood.” Callamard’s report, published in June 2019, concluded that there was “credible evidence” that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was behind Khashoggi’s murder, which she deemed to be an “international crime.”