Thursday, March 28

Biden defends that he confronted Bin Salman over the death of dissident Khashoggi


This is what Biden told the press after his first day in Jeddah, the Saudi city: “Regarding the Khashoggi murder, I brought up the subject at the beginning of the meeting, making it clear what I thought of him at the time and what I think of him now. And I was frank and direct in talking about it. I made my opinion very clear.”

That opinion expressed in the past is that Bin Salman should be treated throughout the world as a “pariah” for, according to US intelligence, having ordered the capture, murder and dismemberment of the journalist dissident Jamal Khashoggi during a visit to a Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2019.

According to Biden, this is what Bin Salman replied: “Basically said he was not personally responsible of it. I replied that it probably was. He said that he was not personally responsible for it and that he took action against those responsible. And then I went on to talk more about how such dealing with any opponent or critic of the Saudi administration is seen in other countries, and to me, as a violation of human rights.”

The meeting, after that beginning, lasted three hours, something that seems to indicate that, in any case, Biden no longer thinks Bin Salman is a “pariah”.

fist bump

One of the images that will remain indelible of this American presidency is that of the fist bump between the twothe president who came to the White House as a standard-bearer of democratic values ​​and the de facto prince who governs an absolutist kingdom, accused by the CIA itself of dismembering a North American resident, a prestigious columnist for the «Washington Post».

The official Saudi version of events is that eithereight people were found guilty for Khashoggi’s death and five of them were sentenced to death. Those sentences were later reduced to 20 years in prison. According to that version, not very credible in Washington, Bin Salman had nothing to do with that death.

In the end, the Arab crown had been courting American elites for years, presenting Bin Salman, who is 36 years old, as a modernizer, arranging for him tours and meetings with Facebook, Amazon and all the modern digital giants. It was the face of a new future for the Persian Gulf, until it became synonymous with the brutal annihilation of dissidents, especially among the Democratic ranks.

The fellow journalists who have traveled with Biden have told the rest of the White House correspondents in their reports about the extreme Saudi measures to prevent press access to meetings and even an attempt to veto reporters from the ‘Washington Post’ , where Khashoggi wrote. A Saudi media adviser even told the Saudis, without apparent irony, that they could not enter a meeting: “I’m just the messenger, don’t kill me”.

the veteran peter alexander, from the NBC network, fought in a thousand battles, did manage to shout a question to Bin Salman from the distance: “Jamal Khashoggi, are you going to apologize to your family?” Bin Salman made a face, according to Alexander, and they kicked him out of the room, pressing him hard on the arm, making him understand that in Saudi Arabia, such things are not done.


www.abc.es

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