February 10, 2021 at 10:17 am
The phone call to the family lasted just one minute. It came 23 months after aid worker Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan had been arrested at the offices of the Red Crescent in Riyadh, where he worked co-ordinating rescue operations and emergency relief. He was held incommunicado despite numerous efforts by the family to speak with him and to see him. They were told repeatedly, He is still under investigation. No visitors and no phone calls allowed.
Then on 12 February last year, the phone rang at the family home. It was Abdulrahman. He couldn t say anything other than that he was being held in the notorious Al Ha ir Prison, a maximum-security centre for political prisoners just south of Riyadh. My family could tell from his tone that he didn t want to scare us, his sister Areej told me. He s always thinking about others, about protecting others.
Biden administration to declassify report about Khashoggi murder
A demonstrator holds a poster picturing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on 25 October 2018 [YASIN AKGUL/AFP/Getty Images] January 20, 2021 at 3:00 pm
The incoming US administration under Joe Biden will declassify an intelligence report about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul more than two years ago. This news was revealed by Avril Haines, who is expected to serve as the Director of National Intelligence in Biden s team.
Khashoggi was in self-exile and working as a columnist for the
Washington Post when he was brutally murdered by a Saudi hit squad on 2 October 2018. Following months of investigations, it was reported that the operation was overseen by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and his intelligence chiefs, according to audio recordings obtained by Turkish intelligence.
MIAMI, Fla. (CN) Al Jazeera journalist Ghada Oueiss sued Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed in federal court Wednesday over an alleged conspiracy to sully her reputation.
In a 93-page complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida, Oueiss claims the crown princes worked with an international network of conspirators to repeatedly hack her cell phone and leak her personal information worldwide.
Her attorneys, Daniel Rashbaum and Jeffrey Marcus with the law firm Marcus Neiman & Rashbaum LLP, say this network included several Saudi and UAE officials and TV stations.
The complaint also accuses a few U.S. citizens such as Florida residents Sharon Collins and Hussam Al-Jundi of being involved in the scheme by publishing Oueiss’s stolen information on social media platforms.