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Agnes Callamard, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights [Jose Cabezas/Reuters]
On Monday, a Saudi Arabian court overturned five death sentences for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
In a widely condemned trial, the court handed down 20-year sentences to five people and sentenced three others to seven to 10 years.
Agnes Callamard, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, criticized the trial for being neither fair nor transparent and for failing to address “the responsibility of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”
In June 2019, Callamard published a report in which he concluded that there was “credible evidence” that Khashoggi was “the victim of a premeditated extrajudicial execution for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible.”
He spoke to Al Jazeera about the trial.
Al Jazeera: He has described the trial as a “mockery of justice.” Why do you think this is so?
Callamard: We know that the trial did not meet the most basic international standards for fair trials.
Most importantly, the high-level officials who were appointed by the prosecutor were never included in the trial and here I am referring to Saud al-Qahtani, the [former] advisor to the crown prince [Mohammed bin Salman]. The individuals that we know were part of the crime planning have not been prosecuted.
Another important problem is that the identity of the defendants has not been revealed. Under international law, there are very few cases in which confidentiality can be applied and this case did not qualify.
Furthermore, it has not been explained why these defendants were chosen and not others. Lower-ranking officials were found guilty of the most serious crimes.
Furthermore, all hearings were held behind closed doors.
Al Jazeera: Why do you think Saudi Arabia went ahead with the trial when it was largely deemed to have lost credibility in the eyes of the international community?
Agnes Callamard: I always suspected that the trial was carried out due to pressure from Saudi Arabia’s allies.
The trial, which began in January 2019, was always intended to be conducted according to the best possible standards.
It was accompanied by a narrative in the international arena that insisted that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was an internal matter that required an internal response.
This was one way of handling the aftermath of Khashoggi’s murder.
The five permanent members of the Security Council [China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States] they were invited to attend the hearings.
The trial was intended for those five powerful actors. It was not intended for the general international audience because they were not present.
And from that point of view, Saudi Arabia has managed to make the Security Council complicit in this travesty of justice.
The members of the Security Council have chosen to attend the trial and remain silent. They have agreed to sign a confidentiality agreement and this makes them complicit.
Al Jazeera: In May, one of the journalist’s sons, Salah Khashoggi, who lives in Saudi Arabia and has received financial compensation from the royal court for the murder of his father, announced that the family had forgiven the murderers.
What role do you think this played in the sentencing?
Callamard: We were hoping for a pardon and this is exactly what happened, although the crime committed against Jamal Khashoggi was not the type that should be forgiven.
It was theater. It was literally a play that was performed before our eyes with different acts.
There were Islamic scholars who debated whether this was a crime under Shariah (Islamic) law that could be forgiven. Because it was a premeditated crime, because it was so hideous.
From my point of view, the crime had many more dimensions than a crime committed against Jamal Khashoggi’s family. There was an act of torture, an act of disappearance.
The body has not been found. It was a crime against Turkey [as the murder took place in the Saudi consulate there], was a crime under international law, including the Vienna Convention. Neither of these dimensions was considered during the trial.
Al Jazeera: Do you think the eight defendants were guilty?
Callamard: The defendants did not deny that they killed Jamal Khashoggi. The identities of the people have not been made public, but they match the people identified by Turkey as those in the room when Khashoggi was killed.
Then the hit men were found guilty. But I don’t think they are the only ones paying. Those who have not been found guilty are the people who were part of the planning of the crime.
The crime was a state crime and we must ensure that the state is held accountable, not just the “little soldiers.”
Al Jazeera: Mohammed bin Salman described the operation that led to the murder of Khashoggi as a “rogue operation”. Did the trial serve to support that claim?
Be quiet: Yes, that’s why the trial was theater. It’s part of the Saudi Arabian narrative from the beginning that it was a rogue operation.
As I repeatedly highlighted in my report, a rogue operation under international law is identified in a very limited way. Nothing happened during this crime that meets the definition of a rogue operation under international law.
Every aspect of the crime carries the responsibility of the state. The people on the team were all state officials. The team was sent on an official mission to Turkey.
Those who carried out the massacre benefited from state resources. They entered Turkey on a plane that had diplomatic clearance. Two members of the team had diplomatic passports.
They operated inside a consulate. There was a follow-up team of 17 state officials who cleaned up the crime scene.
All elements of the operation demonstrate the responsibility of the state of Saudi Arabia. There is nothing in this operation that can be described as “dishonest”.
Al Jazeera: Saudi Arabia described the trial as a “final judgment.” Do you think the world will ever hear the full truth about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi?
Callamard: It could be the final judgment in Saudi Arabia. I never believed that justice was delivered through the Saudi Arabian judicial system. They have just shown that they cannot administer justice.
It is doubtful that Mohammed bin Salman will ever appear in court. But there are other ways to do Jamal justice.
There is an ongoing lawsuit in Turkey that may reveal more information. There are processes in the United States Congress for the National Director of Intelligence to release his assessment of the responsibility of the crown prince.
This document will eventually be made public. We just have to keep hammering and demanding the truth.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
