In the end, it was Khashoggi’s ‘friends’ who silenced him

The last time you saw Trump this excited was when the coke and the 14 year olds arrived at the party. https://t.co/IIqmzgrLAf

— Marlene Robertson🇨🇦 (@marlene4719) November 19, 2025

Jamal Khashoggi was investigating allegations that Jared Kushner was selling CIA secrets to Mohammed bin Salman when MBS ordered Khashoggi’s murder and dismemberment. Six months after he left the White House, Kushner pocketed a cool TWO BILLION DOLLARS from the Saudis.

Se på Threads

In case you missed it, I did. Here’s a photo of Epstein w/ Mohammed bin Salman(MBS), Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia & murderer of Jamal Khashoggi. It was in an Epstein residence. Also remember a fake passport had his address listed as Saudi Arabia. There is definitely more to find. pic.twitter.com/WE7G4pUF9B

— Anthony Andrews (@anthon7yandrews) September 20, 2025

Did you know Adnan Khashoggi was a client of Epstein’s financial company in the early 80s while Khashoggi was trafficking arms for the Iran/Contra Affair. Adnan also sold his yacht to Trump in the 80s,Trump named Trump Princess. Adnan was Jamal’s & Dodi al Fayed’s uncle. All fact pic.twitter.com/Ow8W82wUpL

— Anthony Andrews (@anthon7yandrews) September 22, 2025

First published on Bergensia, October 19, 2018

Shenaz Kermalli, Ryerson University

I was first in touch with Jamal Khashoggi — the Saudi journalist who disappeared on Oct. 2 — while setting up an interview with Osama bin Laden’s former close friend and brother-in-law, Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, for the CBC back in 2003.

It was two years after Sept. 11, 2001, when 2,977 victims were killed by four coordinated attacks against the United States by the al-Qaida terrorist group, and the world was still searching for reasons behind the tide of anti-Americanism across the Arab world.

Khalifa was a murky character at the time (he has since died in a mysterious killing in Madagascar in 2007). After Sept. 11, 2001, he always maintained publicly that he had fallen out with bin Laden’s decision to form al-Qaida in 1988. He was accused of being a major financier for the al-Qaida-aligned Abu Sayyaf terrorist group and reportedly also played a controversial role in the arrest of the group that attempted to blow up the World Trade Centre in 1993.

Khashoggi, then the deputy editor-in-chief of Arab News, a Gulf English-language daily, was one of dozens of Saudi-based journalists and political observers I reached out to in an effort to track down Khalifa. For several months, all my calls and emails went unanswered. And then Khashoggi responded.

Yes, I know Khalifa, he told me via email. And yes, he could help facilitate an in-person interview with him.

From a news perspective, it was a great scoop: a rare opportunity to speak to someone who had once been close to bin Laden. Khashoggi not only followed through with the interview but also sought out several other English-speaking political analysts to participate in a separate television segment — a panel discussing Saudi affairs.

A wide source-list: Saudi royals and terrorists

I know I am not alone among foreign journalists who have had similarly positive experiences working with Khashoggi. Any reporter or policy researcher who has covered the Gulf countries can attest to how difficult it is to find helpful, credible, and thoughtful voices who are willing to share their insight on life inside the elusive kingdom.

In this respect, Khashoggi was a breath of fresh air. He always seemed to be fine with appearing on camera and being identified in news reports.

But Khashoggi was also noticeably cautious. This caution likely prompted any reporter who used him as a source to assess him with a healthy degree of scrutiny. How many journalists, after all — no matter how high they are — can honestly say they have sources to both international terrorists and elusive members of the Saudi royal family?

It’s no secret that Khashoggi had parallel careers as both a reporter and a government adviser. From 2003 to 2006, he was the right-hand man of the powerful Saudi prince, Faisal bin Turki, a former spy chief and ambassador to the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Clearly, he was no ordinary journalist.

Polite requests for new freedoms

But he was also no ordinary political adviser. Under his editorial direction at Arab News, for instance, he bravely published editorials that called for greater personal freedoms and increased employment opportunities for Saudi youth. He allowed coverage of public demands by migrant workers and Shia minority communities in Bahrain. These are virtual no-go areas in Gulf news outlets.

It would be misleading, however, to portray him in the way some leading journalists have since his disappearance last week in Turkey. Khashoggi wasn’t “a fierce critic” of the Saudi regime.

Before he decided to start using The Washington Post as a platform to effect change last year (after being constantly suspended from writing in various Saudi media), his criticism of the leadership could probably best be described as subtle, with polite reservations about the kingdom’s policies.

“Khashoggi was a smooth, articulate, and polite defender of the realm,” says Madawi al-Rasheed, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, in a column for U.K. publication Middle East Eye. “His reservations on Saudi policies have always been subtle and tolerated.”

They were especially tolerated — and no doubt appreciated by the ruling elite — when he publicly supported the Saudi position on the disastrous war in Yemen (although his recent editorials in the Washington Post take on a decidedly different tone), the execution of leading Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in 2016, and the 2011 Saudi-led military crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired activists in Bahrain.

Khashoggi’s disappearance

In the days after Khashoggi’s disappearance, it’s worth noticing that many of the experts, journalists, and political officials he regularly debated with on air also expressed sorrow — and respect for what he stood for. “Jamal Khashoggi and I disagreed on many issues, but unlike many of his Saudi and UAE colleagues, he was always civil and polite to me and other Iranians,” tweeted Mohammad Marandi, a professor of English literature and orientalism at the University of Tehran.

Another journalist in Bahrain who has been imprisoned numerous times for covering the violent Saudi crackdown on unarmed activists vehemently disagreed with Khashoggi’s perception of Iranian encroachment in the region, but told me he still credits Khashoggi for trying to bring reform. “You don’t survive in Saudi if you don’t have friends. I can tell you from experience, he was focused on getting the real story with all views out.”

In the end, it was Khashoggi’s own “friends” that silenced him. And if the latest accounts of his death by Turkish media and authorities are true — that there was an assault and a struggle inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he was last seen walking into — then he follows a long line of other critics who have paid tragically to speak truth to power.

It’s a vital reminder not only of Riyadh’s crazed obsession with stifling dissent, but of the need to genuinely respect and value intellectuals with diverse perspectives.

Shenaz Kermalli, Journalism Instructor, Ryerson University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.