Khashoggi: Saudi prince ‘served with lawsuit’ accusing him of assassination

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 21 March 2021

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NEW YORK - Lawyers for the fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi say they have served the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a legal complaint – allowing proceedings against the Saudi royal to proceed, reports Saturday the London-based The Independent.

Last year, Hatice Cengiz, who was poised to marry the writer and activist, and members of a non-profit group the Saudi journalist established in Washington DC, filed a lawsuit against the 35-year-old prince, commonly known as MBS, accusing him and others of the kidnap, drugging, torture, and assassination of the US resident.

“The ruthless torture and murder of Mr Khashoggi shocked the conscience of people throughout the world. The objective of the murder was clear – to halt Mr Khashoggi’s advocacy in the United States, principally as the executive director of Plaintiff Dawn [Democracy for the Arab World Now], for democratic reform in the Arab world,” the lawsuit said.

The crown prince has always denied the allegations and insisted he had nothing to do with the killing of Khashoggi, who was last seen alive when he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

Earlier this year, a report published by the US intelligence services claimed MBS knew about, and approved of the plan to kill the 59-year-old journalist, whose body has never been recovered. He had been a regular contributor to the Washington Post.

The report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, cited the crown prince’s control of decision-making in Saudi Arabia as well as the involvement of a key advisor and members of the prince’s protective detail in the operation that killed Khashoggi, a critic of the royal family.

Now, lawyers say that using an unusual combination of WhatsApp messaging, express mail to the Saudi authorities, publication in TheNew York Times international edition and Al-Quds Al-Arabi, and by giving notice to MBS’s lawyers of record in the US, they have been able to serve the complaint.

“This an important moment. The lawyers for the crown prince have appeared in court and that means the case can now proceed,” Faisal Gill, managing partner of the Gill Law Firm, and one of the lawyers representing Ms Cengiz and Dawn, told The Independent.

Three lawyers are named in court documents as representing MBS were Michael Kellogg, who has previously represented the the government of Saudi Arabia, and Andrew Shen. Both work for Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick. The third is Gregory Gerber Rapawy.

Mr Kellogg did not immediately respond to enquires. Mr Shen told The Independent the company had a policy of not committing to the press on cases. Asked if the suit had been served, he said: “I’m sorry, I cannot offer any comment.”

During his campaign for the White House, Joe Biden claimed he would pursue MBS and Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi, who had entered the Turkish consulate to get a visa to travel to Saudi Arabia to get married.

At one point he said he would make them “pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are”.

Yet after the report was published, he stepped back from punishing MBS specifically, even as his administration sanctioned other senior Saudis.

“The relationship with Saudi Arabia is bigger than any one individual,” secretary of state Antony Blinken said at a news conference.

Mr Biden also defended his actions, telling ABC News he was the “guy that released the report”, unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, who refused to do so.

He added: “We held accountable all the people in that organisation – but not the crown prince, because we have never that I’m aware of, when we have an alliance with a country, gone to the acting head of state and punished that person and ostracised him.”

The civil lawsuit, which names almost two-dozen Saudi officials along with MBS, seeks relief under the Alien Tort Claims Act, and the Torture Victim Protection Act.

“This lawsuit seeks not only to hold MBS and other senior Saudi Arabian officials accountable for Jamal’s murder, but also to put the Saudi government and other abusive governments on notice that they will pay a price for such extrajudicial killings of journalists and activists,” said Mr Gill.

US and Chinese diplomats clash in first high-level meeting

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 19 March 2021

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Anchorage, Alaska - The first high-level US-China meeting of the Biden administration got off to a fiery start on Thursday, with both sides levelling sharp rebukes of the others' policies in a rare public display that underscored the level of bilateral tension.

The run-up to the talks in Anchorage, Alaska, which followed visits by US officials to allies Japan and South Korea, was marked by a flurry of moves by Washington that showed it was taking a tough stance, and by blunt talk from Beijing.

"We will ... discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, economic coercion of our allies," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his Chinese counterparts in a highly unusual extended back-and-forth in front of cameras.

"Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability," he said.

The Biden administration has made clear that it is looking for a change in behavior from China, which has expressed hope to reset relations between the world's two largest economies that worsened drastically under former President Donald Trump.

China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi responded with a 15-minute speech in Chinese while the US side awaited translation, lashing out over what he said was the United States' struggling democracy, poor treatment of minorities, and criticizing its foreign and trade policies.

"The United States uses its military force and financial hegemony to carry out long-arm jurisdiction and suppress other countries," said Yang.

"It abuses so-called notions of national security to obstruct normal trade exchanges, and incite some countries to attack China," he added.

'GRANDSTANDING' AND PROTOCOL BREACHES

Throughout Yang's monologue, US National Security Adviser Sullivan and other officials in the delegation passed notes to each other. At the end, Blinken held journalists in the room so he could respond.

What is typically a few minutes of opening remarks in front of journalists for such high-level meetings lasted more than an hour, and the two delegations tussled about when media would be ushered out of the room.

Afterwards, the United States accused China of "grandstanding" while Chinese state media blamed US officials for speaking too long and being "inhospitable".

Both sides accused the other of violating diplomatic protocol by speaking too long in opening remarks.

"The Chinese delegation ... seems to have arrived intent on grandstanding, focused on public theatrics and dramatics over substance," the official told reporters at the Anchorage hotel where the meeting was taking place.

"Exaggerated diplomatic presentations often are aimed at a domestic audience," the official added.

Many netizens on China's social media said Chinese officials were doing a good job in Alaska, and that the US side lacked sincerity.

Some even characterized the talks as a "Hongmen Banquet", referring to an event that took place 2,000 years ago where a rebel leader invited another to a feast with the intention of murdering him.

Still, the two sides reconvened for another meeting on Thursday evening, and a senior Biden administration official said that the first session was "substantive, serious, and direct," running well beyond the two hours originally allotted.

"We used the session, just as we had planned, to outline our interests and priorities, and we heard the same from our Chinese counterparts," the official said in the pool report, adding that a third session of talks was scheduled for Friday morning.

While much of Biden's China policy is still being formulated, including how to handle the tariffs on Chinese goods implemented under Trump, his administration has so far placed a stronger emphasis on democratic values and allegations of human rights abuses by China.

China firmly opposes U.S. interference in what it regards as its internal affairs, issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said it was expecting the United States to brief them about the talks.

TERMS OF DISAGREEMENT

Washington says Blinken's Asia tour before the meeting with Chinese officials, as well as US outreach to Europe, India and other partners, shows how the United States has strengthened its hand to confront China since Biden took office in January.

But the two sides appeared primed to agree on very little at the talks.

Even the status of the meeting became a sticking point, with China insisting it is a "strategic dialogue", harkening back to bilateral mechanisms of years past. The US side rejected that, calling it a one-off session.

On the eve of the talks, the United States issued a flurry of actions directed at China, including a move to begin revoking Chinese telecoms licenses, subpoenas to multiple Chinese information technology companies over national security concerns, and updated sanctions on China over a rollback of democracy in Hong Kong.

Adding to tensions, China on Friday tried a Canadian citizen on espionage charges, in a case embroiled in a wider diplomatic spat between Washington and Beijing.

At the talks on Thursday, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi questioned Blinken about whether the sanctions were announced ahead of the meeting on purpose.

Washington has said it is willing to work with China when it is in US interests, citing climate policy and the coronavirus pandemic as examples. Blinken said Washington hoped to see China use its influence with North Korea to persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons.

Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said tough statements from both sides in the run-up to the meeting had created a risk that it would devolve into an exchange of accusations and demands.

"Neither side benefits from this meeting being judged a total failure," Glaser said.

Georgia massage parlour shootings leave 8 dead; man captured

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 17 March 2021

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA, USA - Shootings at two massage parlours in Atlanta and one in the suburbs Tuesday evening left eight people dead, many of them women of Asian descent, authorities said. A 21-year-old man suspected in the shootings was taken into custody in southwest Georgia hours later after a manhunt, police said.

The attacks began around 5 p.m., when five people were shot at Youngs Asian Massage Parlor in a strip mall near a rural area in Acworth, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Atlanta, Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Capt. Jay Baker said. Two people died at the scene and three were transported to a hospital where two of them also died, Baker said.

No one was arrested at the scene.

Around 5:50 p.m., police in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, responding to a call of a robbery in progress, found three women dead from apparent gunshot wounds at Gold Spa. While they were at that scene, they learned of a call reporting shots fired at another spa across the street, Aromatherapy Spa, and found a woman who appeared to have been shot dead inside the business.

“It appears that they may be Asian,” Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant said.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in statement Wednesday that its diplomats in Atlanta have confirmed from police that four of the victims who died were women of Korean descent. The ministry said the office of its Consulate General in Atlanta is trying to confirm the nationality of the women.

The killings came amid a recent wave of attacks against Asian Americans that coincided with the spread of the coronavirus across the United States.

“Our entire family is praying for the victims of these horrific acts of violence,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday evening on Twitter.

A man suspected in the Acworth shooting was captured by surveillance video pulling up to the business around 4:50 p.m. Tuesday, minutes before the attack, authorities said. Baker said the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, of Woodstock, was taken into custody in Crisp County, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of Atlanta.

Baker said they believe Long is also the suspect in the Atlanta shootings.

Police said video footage showed the suspect’s vehicle in the area of the Atlanta spas about the time of those attacks as well. That, as well as other video evidence, “suggests it is extremely likely our suspect is the same as Cherokee County’s, who is in custody,” Atlanta police said in a statement. Atlanta and Cherokee County authorities were working to confirm the cases are related.

FBI spokesman Kevin Rowson said the agency was assisting Atlanta and Cherokee County authorities in the investigation.

Crisp County Sheriff Billy Hancock said in a video posted on Facebook that his deputies and state troopers were notified around 8 p.m. that a murder suspect out of north Georgia was headed toward their county. Deputies and troopers set up along the interstate and “made contact with the suspect,” who was driving a 2007 black Hyundai Tucson, around 8:30 p.m., he said.

A state trooper performed a PIT, or pursuit intervention technique, maneuver, “which caused the vehicle to spin out of control,” Hancock said. Long was then taken into custody “without incident” and was being held in the Crisp County jail for Cherokee County authorities who were expected to arrive soon to continue their investigation.

Due to the shootings, Atlanta police said they dispatched officers to check nearby similar businesses and increased patrols in the area.