A senior Saudi official has issued a death threat against United Nations independent investigator Agnès Callamard following her investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In an interview with the Guardian, the outgoing special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings said a UN colleague warned her in January 2020 that a senior Saudi official had twice threatened in a meeting with other senior UN officials in Geneva has to have Callamard taken care of. of ”if she has not been admitted by the UN.
Asked how the remark was viewed by her colleagues in Geneva, Callamard said: ‘A threat. This is how it is understood. ”
Callamard, a French national and human rights expert who will take up her new post as secretary general of Amnesty International this month, was the first official to publicly investigate and publish a detailed report on Khashoggi’s assassination in 2018, a leading former insider who wrote his column at the Washington Post to write critically about the Saudi government.
Callamard’s 100-page report, published in June 2019, concluded that there was ‘credible evidence’ that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other senior Saudi officials were responsible for the assassination, and claimed the murder called an ‘international crime’. The Biden government has since released its own unclassified report, which concluded that Prince Mohammed had approved the assassination. The Saudi government has denied that the assassination, which took place at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, was ordered by the future king.
The Guardian has independently confirmed Callamard’s report of the January 2020 episode.
The alleged threats, according to her, were made at a ‘high-level’ meeting between Saudi diplomats in Geneva, where Saudi officials and UN officials were visited in Geneva. Callamard said during the exchange that they had criticized her work on the Khashoggi assassination and registered their anger over her investigation and her conclusions. Saudi officials have also raised unsubstantiated allegations that she received money from Qatar – a regular refrain against critics of the Saudi government.
Callamard said one of the visiting senior Saudi officials allegedly said he had received phone calls from individuals who were willing to ‘look after her’.
When UN officials sounded the alarm, other Saudis present wanted to reassure them that the comments should not be taken seriously. The Saudi group then left the room, but according to Callamard, the visiting senior Saudi official stayed behind and repeated the alleged threat to the remaining UN officials in the room.
The visiting Saudi official specifically said that he knows people who have offered to ‘solve the problem if you do not’.
‘It was reported to me at the time and it was one occasion where the United Nations was actually very strong on the issue. “People who were present, and also after that, made it clear to the Saudi delegation that it was absolutely inappropriate and that there was an expectation that it would not go any further,” Callamard said.
While Callamard has in the past discussed the threats she has faced in her work as special rapporteur, including by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, the Guardian is being revealed details for the first time.
The development is likely to reinforce the view of human rights activists that the Saudi government has acted with impunity in the wake of Khashoggi’s assassination in 2018, including through arbitrary arrests of critics of the prince, as well as his potential political opponents.
The Saudi government did not respond to email requests sent by the Guardian to the Saudi Foreign Ministry, the Saudi Embassy in London and the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
‘You know, these threats do not work on me. Well, I do not want to ask any more threats. But I have to do what I have to do. “It did not stop me from acting in a way that I think is the right thing to do,” said Callamard.