Khashoggi Supported Anti-MBS Youth Group Before He Was Killed: CNN
MOTIVE?
Writer reportedly pledged $30,000 to activist group that would speak out against Saudi crown prince.
Handout/Reuters
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi reportedly planned to build an “online youth movement” to speak out against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before he was killed in Istanbul. According to hundreds of WhatsApp messages exchanged between Khashoggi and fellow Saudi exile Omar Abdulaziz, Khashoggi pledged $30,000 for the effort, CNN reports. Khashoggi reportedly did not hold back in criticizing Mohammed in the messages, calling him a “beast” and a “pac man” that ate his victims. “[T]he more victims he eats, the more he wants. I will not be surprised that the oppression will reach even those who are cheering him, then others and others and so on,” he reportedly wrote. Khashoggi is said to have confirmed a wire transfer of $5,000 to Abdulaziz to go toward the online movement against Mohammed shortly before he was killed. CNN reports the men also planned to send foreign SIM cards to Saudi Arabia so activists in the country could “tweet without being traced.” Abdulaziz told CNN he believes Saudi officials managed to intercept his phone and WhatsApp messages in August—and he believes the hacking may have led to Khashoggi’s death. “The hacking of my phone played a major role in what happened to Jamal, I am really sorry to say,” Abdelaziz told CNN. “The guilt is killing me.”
