US arrests two over alleged clandestine Chinese police station in New York City

April 18, 2023 by 2 Comments

Chinese Ministry of State SecurityTHE UNITED STATES HAS arrested two residents of New York City for allegedly conspiring to create and operate a clandestine police station run by the Chinese government in the borough of Manhattan. The arrests come a month after authorities in Canada launched an investigation into allegations that the Chinese government was running at least two clandestine police stations in Montreal and four more in Toronto.

The allegations first surfaced in a 2022 report by Safeguard Defenders, a Spanish-based non-government organization that focuses on the state of human rights in China. The report, titled “110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild”, claimed that China’s Ministry of Public Security, in association with Chinese diplomatic facilities around the world, operated dozens of clandestine police stations in over 50 countries. Their official mission, according to the report, was to service the needs of Chinese citizens living abroad, as well as visitors from China. However, these clandestine police stations were “actively […] engaging in covert and illegal policing operations” targeting Chinese citizens and expatriates, according to Safeguard Defenders.

On Monday, two New York City residents, Chen Jinping, 59, and Lu Jianwang, 61, were arrested and charged with conspiring to operate as unregistered agents of the People’s Republic of China. They were also charged with obstruction of justice in connection with the Department of Justice’s investigation into their activities. United States government prosecutors allege that Chen and Lu were behind the establishment of a clandestine police station in Manhattan. According to the indictment, the Manhattan police station —the first of its kind in the United States— was operated by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). It is reported that the station was shut down by the MSS in late 2022, soon after Chinese officials became aware of an investigation into the activities of the station by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.

A representative of the United States prosecutor accused the Chinese government of engaging in a “flagrant violation” of American sovereignty with “actions that go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct”. Meanwhile, Chen and Lu appeared before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Monday. They face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 April 2023 | Permalink

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Canada investigating claims of secret Chinese police stations in Montreal

March 15, 2023 by Leave a comment

Chinese embassy of China in CanadaAUTHORITIES IN CANADA ARE reportedly probing claims that the Chinese government is operating at least two “clandestine police stations” in Montreal, which allegedly monitor the activities of Chinese citizens and Canadians of Chinese origin. The announcement comes less than four months after a similar investigation took place into the alleged existence of four illegal Chinese police stations operating in the Toronto area.

The investigations were sparked by a report issued in 2022 by Safeguard Defenders, a Spanish-based non-government organization that focuses on the state of human rights in China. The report, titled “110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild”, claimed that China’s Ministry of Public Security, in association with Chinese diplomatic facilities, operated dozens of clandestine police stations around the world. Their official mission, according to the report, was to service the needs of Chinese citizens living abroad, as well as visitors from China. At the same time, however, these clandestine police stations were “actively […] engaging in covert and illegal policing operations” against Chinese citizens and expatriates, according to Safeguard Defenders.

Last Thursday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) field office in Quebec said it was “carrying out police actions aimed at detecting and disrupting […] foreign state-backed criminal activities” in the Montreal area. On the same day, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged during a Parliamentary session that his administration would “take every measure to protect Canadians from unacceptable actions by hostile authoritarian regimes”.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa did not respond to media requests for comment. Last year, in response to the RCMP’s investigation in Toronto, the embassy had said that the alleged clandestine police stations were service centers run by volunteers and not by Chinese diplomatic or law enforcement staff. It also argued that the mission of these centers were to provide consular services to Chinese citizens in the midst of the disruptions that were caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement issued last Friday, Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning accused Canada of “sensationalizing and hyping the matter [in order to] attack and smear China”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 15 March 2023 | Permalink

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Taliban have executed over 100 ex-security forces personnel, UN report says

February 1, 2022 by Leave a comment

TalibanTHE AFGHAN TALIBAN HAVE executed over 100 members of the now-defunct Afghan government, with a majority of those killed consisting of security forces personnel and Afghan employees of Western military forces. This information is included in a confidential report by the United Nations Political Mission in Afghanistan, which was produced earlier this month.

The Taliban completed their swift take-over of Afghanistan on August 15 of last year. On that day, they entered the Afghan capital Kabul, facing almost no resistance by the Afghan National Army and the country’s security forces. Shortly afterwards, senior Afghan officials pledged that their regime would extend a “general amnesty” to government employees, including Afghans who worked with the United States-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

But according to a confidential report produced earlier this month by the United Nations, the Taliban have executed at least 100 Afghan former government employees since taking power. The report was authored by staff of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which is the Afghan branch of the United Nations’ Political Mission office. Established in 2002, the UNAMA is among the very few international bodies that have remained on the ground in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control the country.

The report was produced for the United Nations Security Council. According to the Associated Press, which accessed a copy of the report, it contains “credible allegations” that most of those who were executed did not receive even a rudimentary form of trial. Instead, their deaths were the result of “extrajudicial killings”, which were carried out “by the Taliban or its affiliates”. In addition to those killings, the United Nations report contains “credible allegations” of at least 50 extrajudicial killings of alleged members of the Islamic State-Khorasan Province. The Taliban have been engaged in a brutal war against the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan since 2015.

The report also details what it describes as systematic violent actions by Taliban against civil society activists. These include enforced disappearances, temporary arrests and detentions, physical beatings, as well as systematic threats and various forms of intimidation issued against growing numbers of Afghans. A substantial portion of the targets of these activities are former members of Afghanistan’s security forces and ISAF employees, according to the report.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 01 February 2022 | Permalink

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Updated: France arrests, then releases, alleged assassin of Jamal Khashoggi

December 8, 2021 by 1 Comment

Jamal KhashoggiAN ALLEGED MEMBER OF the assassin squad that killed and dismembered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in 2018, is reportedly under arrest in France, where he was caught trying to board an international flight. Khashoggi, 59, was a Saudi government adviser who became critical of the Kingdom’s style of governance. He moved to the United States and began criticizing Saudi Arabia from the pages of The Washington Post. He was killed on October 2, 2018, by a 15-member Saudi hit squad while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He had gone there to be issued a certificate of divorce from his former wife in Saudi Arabia.

After several weeks of vehemently denying any role in Khashoggi’s killing, the Saudi government eventually admitted that the journalist was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. One of Khashoggi’s alleged killers is Khaled Aedh Alotaibi (or al-Otaibi), a 33-year-old member of the Saudi Royal Guard Regiment, whose mission is to protect the Saudi royal family. Alotaibi has been barred from entering several Western countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. But Saudi Arabia has rejected a request by Turkey to extradite him to face charges in a Turkish court. The oil kingdom argues that Alotaibi was not among a group of “rogue” intelligence officers” who killed Khashoggi, and have since been punished under Saudi law.

Yesterday several French media outlets reported that Alotaibi had been arrested at the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport at 9:30 am local time, as he was about to board a commercial flight to the Saudi capital Riyadh. He was apparently traveling under his real passport and not under an assumed identity. He has since been placed under judicial detention, while French authorities are trying to confirm that he is the same person who is wanted for the killing of Khashoggi. If this is confirmed, Alotaibi will be facing a preliminary hearing this week, and a French court will have to decide whether he will be extradited to Turkey.

In a statement published late on Tuesday, the Saudi embassy in France dismissed Alotaibi’s arrest as “a case of mistaken identity” and repeated the official Saudi government stance that all those who participated in Khashoggi’s murder have already faced justice in Saudi Arabia. It is worth noting that Alotaibi’s arrest occurred just days after French President Emmanuel Macron became the first major Western leader to openly meet with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohamed Mohammad Bin Salman. The de-facto ruler of the country is believed by many to have ordered Khashoggi’s assassination.

Update: Early on Wednesday, French prosecutors said that the warrant issued by Turkey for the arrest of Alotaibi did not apply to the individual arrested on Tuesday. In a statement released to the press, the prosecutor’s office said: “Extensive checks on the identity of this person showed that the warrant did not apply to him. [Therefore] he was released”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 December 2021 | Permalink

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US considers ending intel sharing with countries that criminalize homosexuality

April 27, 2020 by 2 Comments

Richard GrenellThe administration of United States President Donald Trump is considering the possibility of limiting or terminating the sharing of intelligence with countries around the world that criminalize homosexuality. The move is being led by Richard Grenell, an American diplomat, civil servant and media consultant, who was appointed by the White House as acting Director of National Intelligence in February. This makes Grenell the most senior intelligence official in the US.

The idea behind this proposed move is to apply pressure to countries that continue to criminalize homosexuality to change their laws. The primary force behind this initiative is Grenell himself, who is believed to be the first openly gay individual to serve in a cabinet-level position in the United States. Before his appointment as acting Director of National Intelligence, Grenell had been tasked by President Trump to lead an effort to use the US foreign policy agenda —including financial aid— as a form of incentive to end the criminalization of homosexuality worldwide.

Almost from the moment of his appointment on February 20, Grenell has vigorously prioritized issues relating to discrimination in the workplace. Earlier this month, he sent a letter (.pdf) to the member agencies of the US Intelligence Community urging them to ensure that their policies to protect their LGBT workforce from harassment and discrimination “are specific and deliberate”.

If the ODNI went ahead with limiting intelligence sharing, it would affect Washington’s intelligence relationship with several partners that are considered critical, including Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt. But in an interview with the The New York Times last week, Grenell argued that “ultimately, the United States is safer when our partners respect basic human rights”. Nondiscrimination against LGBT individuals “is an American value”, said Grenell, and argued that the US Intelligence Community should promoting what is effectively “United States policy”. The Times said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had formed a group “to review the issue [of intelligence sharing] and form ideas”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 27 April 2020 | Permalink

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DR Congo military intelligence chief found dead hours before court appearance

March 2, 2020 by Leave a comment

Delphin KahimbiThe head of military intelligence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was found dead on Friday, just hours before he was due to testify before the country’s National Security Council. General Delphin Kahimbi, Deputy Chief of Staff of the DRC Armed Forces, and director of its military intelligence wing, was facing accusations of involvement in an alleged plot to depose the country’s new President, Félix Tshisekedi.

Tshisekedi took over from Joseph Kabila in January of 2019, in what was hailed at the time as the first peaceful transition of power in the DRC since the 1960s. Kabila, who headed the country from 2001 until 2019, has remained a powerful figure in Congolese politics, and participates in a governing coalition with Tshisekedi. But many of Kabila’s supporters want to see Tshisekedi removed from power, and accuse him of assuming the presidency after a fraudulent election. General Kahimbi was among Kabila’s supporters who voiced disagreements against Tshisekedi’s presidency.

Kahimbi rose through the ranks of the military in the 1990s and became a popular military figure after leading a bloody counterinsurgency campaign against secessionist rebels in the eastern DRC. But many accused him of carrying out human rights violations and subverting democratic politics in Africa’s second-largest country. Earlier this year, the European Union placed General Kahimbi in its sanctions list for alleged violations of human rights. Around the same time the United States began pressuring the Tshisekedi government to bring Kahimbi to justice for his role in alleged human rights abuses under the Kabila regime.

On Wednesday, General Kahimbi was briefly arrested by police and was subsequently released on bail. He was summarily suspended from duty and was due to appear before the DRC’s National Security Council on Friday morning. But local reports said he was found dead at his home in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, just hours before he was due to appear before the Council. His wife, Brenda Kahimbi, told the Reuters news agency that he had suffered a heart attack and was pronounced dead in hospital. There are rumors in Kinshasa that he committed suicide, but this is disputed by his family and supporters.

The DRC Armed Forces Council confirmed General Kahimbi’s death, but refused to comment on the cause of his death, or on the precise accusations that he was facing. Late on Friday, the Council released a statement praising General Kahimbi’s contribution to the national security of the DRC. It also announced the launch of an investigation into the general’s death.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 02 March 2020 | Permalink

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Despite imminent US-Taliban deal, CIA plans to keep proxy units in Afghanistan

August 9, 2019 by 3 Comments

Armed guerillas Khost AfghanistanThe United States Central Intelligence Agency plans to retain a strong presence on the ground in Afghanistan, despite reports that American troops may soon be leaving the country following a deal with the Taliban. Several news outlets reported this week that Washington has resolved its differences with the Taliban about withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan, after receiving assurances by the Taliban that they will not cooperate with other militant Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda. An announcement of an agreement between the United States and the Taliban may thus be imminent. But in an article for Foreign Policy, Stefanie Glinski points out that the CIA is not planning to leave the Central Asian country any time soon.

The American intelligence agency is known to support, arm and train several proxy forces throughout Afghanistan. Langley plans to keep those proxy forces operating in the country for the foreseeable future, regardless of whether US troops pull out, says Glinski. She gives the example of the Khost Protection Force (KPF), a 6,500-strong unit of Afghan soldiers who are “trained, equipped and funded by the CIA”. The KPF is the most active and visible of an extensive network of CIA-sponsored paramilitary groups in Afghanistan. It operates almost exclusively along the Afghan-Pakistani border and has a strong presence in Taliban strongholds like Ghazni, Paktia and Khost. The roots of the KPF go back to the days immediately after the attacks of September 11, 2001, which prompted the US military invasion of Afghanistan. It therefore precedes the Afghan National Army, Afghanistan’s state-run military apparatus, and does not operate under its command. Instead, it is solely directed by the CIA, which uses it to secure the Afghan-Pakistani border and disrupt the activities of Taliban, al-Qaeda and Islamic State fighters in the Afghan borderlands.

Members of the KPF claim that they are “better trained than the Afghan National Army”. They are also paid much better, over $1000.00 per month, which is an enormous sum for Afghanistan. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Glinski reports that most KPF fighters joined the group for the money and the ability to eventually seek permanent resettlement in the United States. But alongside the group’s elite image, KPF members have acquired notoriety and are often seen as trigger-happy and unaccountable. Several reports in Western media have said that the KPF’s tactical accomplishments have come at a high price, with countless reports of civilian deaths and, some claim, even war crimes. These risk “alienating the Afghan population”, said a New York Times report last year. Glinski says it is possible the KPF’s aggressive tactics may be “radicalizing portions of the very population it intends to pacify or frighten into submission”. In April of this year, a United Nations report alleged that more Afghan civilians died as a result of attacks by Afghan government and American military attacks than at the hands of the Taliban and other guerilla groups. The CIA did not respond to several requests for comment from Foreign Policy, says Glinski.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 09 August 2019 | Permalink

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Firm founded by ex-Blackwater boss to operate in China’s Xinjiang province

February 5, 2019 by 1 Comment

Erik PrinceA security firm founded by Erik Prince, the former boss of the private military company Blackwater, has announced a deal with the Chinese state to operate a training facility in China’s largely Muslim Xinjiang province. In the months following the United States invasion of Iraq, Blackwater was hired by the Department of State to provide diplomatic security at several locations throughout the Middle Eastern country. By 2010, when the company was abruptly sold to a group of private investors, its tactics in Iraq had prompted international controversy. Prince went on to help found Frontier Services Group (FSG), another private security firm registered in Hong Kong. The company provides security training to personnel working for Chinese companies. Its specialization is training personnel of Chinese firms based abroad, mainly in regions of Africa.

The announcement of the new training center was posted on the FSG’s Chinese-language website. It said that one of FSG’s subsidiaries had struck an agreement to build and operate a “training center” at the Kashgar Caohu industrial park in the city of Kashgar, one of China’s westernmost cities, situated near the country’s border with Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan. The city of 1 million people is located in the province of Xinjiang. In recent months, Beijing has been heavily criticized by several Western countries for allegedly carrying out mass detentions of Uighur Muslims, which make up about half of Xinjiang’s population. Uighurs are ethnically related to the peoples of Central Asia and speak a Turkic dialect. Some see the Chinese state as an occupier and advocate secession, often combined with calls to create an Islamic caliphate. China denies the allegations of mass detentions and claims that Uighurs are voluntarily enrolled in “educational and training facilities”, where they are de-radicalized through political and cultural instruction. Up to a million Uighurs are believed to have been enrolled in these facilities in the past year.

It is worth noting that the initial announcement of the Kashgar Caohu training center agreement between FSG and its Chinese client was eventually deleted from the company’s website. Late last week, an FSG spokesperson told several news agencies, including Reuters, that Prince was not involved in what was described in a statement as a “preliminary agreement” for a training center in Xinjiang. The spokesperson added that Prince probably had “no involvement whatsoever” in the agreement.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 5 February 2019 | Permalink

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Saudi royal suspected of ordering Khashoggi murder leads spy reform body

December 21, 2018 by Leave a comment

King Salman with Crown Prince MohammedThe Saudi royal who is suspected by the international community of having ordered the state-sponsored murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is now leading a committee to reform the Kingdom’s spy services. Khashoggi, 59, was a Saudi government adviser who became critical of the Kingdom’s style of governance. He moved to the United States and began to criticize Saudi Arabia from the pages of The Washington Post. He was killed on October 2 by a 15-member Saudi hit-squad while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in order to be issued a document certifying his divorce from his former wife in Saudi Arabia. After several weeks of vehemently denying any role in Khashoggi’s killing, the Saudi government eventually admitted that he was killed while inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

After conceding that Khashoggi was murdered inside its consulate in Istanbul, the Saudi monarchy pledged to punish those responsible and reform the Kingdom’s intelligence services. But reports in the international press have disclosed that nearly every major Western intelligence agency believes that Khashoggi’s murder was authorized by none other than Muhammad Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and heir-presumptive to the Saudi throne. In late October it was disclosed that Britain’s intelligence services had prior knowledge of a plot to target Khashoggi at the highest echelons of the Saudi government, and allegedly warned Riyadh not to proceed with the plan. And earlier this month it was reported by The Wall Street Journal that, according to the United States Central Intelligence Agency, bin Salman had exchanged text messages with the head of the 15-member hit-team in the hours prior to and following Khashoggi’s brutal murder in Istanbul.

However, not only has the Kingdom’s ruler, King Salman, rejected reports about the crown prince’s alleged involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, but he has also appointed the controversial royal as the head of a ministerial committee to “restructure the General Intelligence Presidency”. The term refers to the primary intelligence agency of Saudi Arabia, which is also known as the General Intelligence Directorate (GID). The ministerial committee has reportedly met several times since October 19, when it was established by royal decree “in pursuit of achieving best international practices” in intelligence operations. On Thursday, Saudi media announced that the ministerial committee had drafted a document recommending “short-, medium-, and long-term development solutions” for restructuring the GID. Several measures were presented by the media as “urgent”. They center on creating a “department for strategy and development” whose task will be to ensure that intelligence operations are in line with the GID’s strategy and the Kingdom’s national security strategy. Another proposed measure involves creating a “general department for legal affairs” that will assess the compatibility of proposed intelligence operations with “international laws and charters and with human rights”. The committee also proposed the creation of a “general department for performance evaluation and internal review” to verify that intelligence operations have been carried out in a legal fashion.

Saudi media reports on Thursday made no mention of the controversy surrounding bin Salman’s presidency of the ministerial committee. For the past two months, the Kingdom has dismissed reports of the crown prince’s involvement in Khashoggi’s murder as “fake news” promoted by its rival Qatar. It has also warned that any social media posts that promote “fake news” about the Saudi government’s involvement in the murder will result in up to five years’ imprisonment. Last month, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former director of the GID, rejected calls for an international inquiry into Khashoggi’s murder and said that Saudi Arabia would never agree to an international investigation into the case.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 21 December 2018 | Permalink

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Britain knew of Saudi plan to target journalist, warned Saudis against it

October 29, 2018 by 9 Comments

Jamal KhashoggiBritish intelligence had prior knowledge of a plot by the Saudi government to target Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident journalist who was killed in the hands of Saudi intelligence officers in Istanbul on October 2, and allegedly warned Riyadh not to proceed with the plan, according to a report. Khashoggi was a former Saudi government adviser who became critical of the kingdom’s style of governance. He is believed to have been killed by a 15-member Saudi hit squad while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He went there for a scheduled appointment in order to be issued a document certifying his divorce from his former wife in Saudi Arabia. After vehemently denying any role in Khashoggi’s killing, the Saudi government admitted last week that the journalist was killed while inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. It has pledged to punish those responsible and reform the Kingdom’s intelligence services. But critics accuse Riyadh of ordering the dissident’s murder.

Now a new report claims that Britain’s external intelligence agency, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), was aware of a plot by the Saudi government to kidnap Khashoggi in order to silence him. British newspaper The Sunday Express says it has evidence from “high ranking intelligence sources” that MI6 was in possession of communications intercepts containing conversations about Khashoggi. The conversations were between Saudi government officials and officers of the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), the Kingdom’s primary spy agency. In the intercepts, a member of the Saudi royal family is allegedly heard giving orders for the GID to kidnap Khashoggi from Turkey sometime in early September. He also instructs the GID to secretly transport the dissident journalist to Saudi soil where he could be interrogated. During the conversation, a discussion took place about the possibility that Khashoggi would physically resist his abductors. At that point in the conversation, the high ranking intelligence source told The Express, the royal family member “left the door open for alternative remedies […] should Khashoggi be troublesome”.

The paper reports that MI6 “became aware” of the arrival of a 15-member Saudi hit squad in Istanbul on October 1, a day before Khashoggi went missing. According to the paper’s source “it was pretty clear what their aim was”, so MI6 contacted the GID directly and warned the Saudi spy agency to “cancel the mission”, said the source. However, the source added, “this request was ignored”.  On October 10, The Washington Post, the newspaper that employed Khashoggi, said that American intelligence agencies had evidence that the Saudi royal family tried to lure The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia, in order to capture him.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 29 October 2018 | Permalink

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US intelligence has evidence Saudis planned to capture missing journalist

October 12, 2018 by 1 Comment

Jamal KhashoggiAmerican intelligence agencies have evidence that the Saudi royal family tried to lure The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia, in order to capture him, according to sources. Khashoggi, 59, is a Saudi government adviser who in 2015 became a critic of the kingdom’s style of governance. He moved to the United States, from where he began to criticize Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the civil war in Yemen, its support for the repression of political freedoms in Egypt, and other issues. He also joined the staff of The Washington Post and penned columns in which he criticized Saudi policies. He has been missing since Tuesday, when he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He went there for a scheduled appointment in order to be issued a document certifying his divorce from his former wife in Saudi Arabia.

Last Sunday, Turkish government officials said that Khashoggi was brutally murdered inside the Saudi consulate during his visit, probably on orders of the Saudi government. Turkish media reports said on Sunday that a 15-member Saudi team arrived in Istanbul shortly prior to Khashoggi’s visit to the consulate. The team, whose members carried diplomatic passports, tortured and then killed Khashoggi, said Turkish sources. They then dismembered his body and took it out of the consulate hidden inside a diplomatic vehicle. Saudi Arabia has denied the charges and said that Khashoggi left the consulate in Istanbul less than an hour after entering it on Tuesday afternoon.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post cited anonymous US officials in claiming that the Saudi royal family had devised an elaborate plan to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia in order to capture him. The paper said that US intelligence agencies are in possession of communications intercepts of exchanges between Saudi officials, in which the plan to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia is discussed. The Post also cited “several of Khashoggi’s friends” who said that in recent months he received phone calls from Saudi officials close to the kingdom’s controversial crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The officials reportedly offered Khashoggi political protection from prosecution if he returned to Saudi Arabia. They also offered him high-level government jobs, said The Post. But Khashoggi was skeptical of the offers and rejected them, his friends said.

The paper also cited an anonymous “former US intelligence official” who said that the travel details of the 15-member Saudi diplomatic team that went to Istanbul on the day of Khashoggi’s disappearance “bore the hallmarks of [an extralegal] rendition” —a person’s unauthorized removal from one country and detention and interrogation in another. Turkey has said that the Saudi team arrived in Istanbul in two separate groups using private aircraft, and departed from the country at different times going to different destinations in the hours after Khashoggi’s disappearance.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 12 October 2018 | Permalink

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Turkey claims Saudi dissident was killed, dismembered inside Saudi consulate

October 8, 2018 by 5 Comments

Jamal KhashoggiTurkish government sources have said that a former trusted aide of the Saudi royal family, who was shunned by Riyadh after criticizing Saudi policies, was murdered inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. Jamal Khashoggi, 59, is an American-educated former adviser to Saudi royals. He worked for years as an advisor to Prince Turki al-Faisal, one of Saudi Arabia’s most recognizable public figures who represented the Kingdom as ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom. But in 2015, when Mohammad bin Salman, favorite son of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, began to rise through the ranks of the royal family, Khashoggi became sharply critical of changes in the Kingdom’s style of governance. He moved to the United States, from where he began to criticize Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the civil war in Yemen, its support for the repression of political freedoms in Egypt, and other issues. Earlier this year, Khashoggi joined the staff of The Washington Post and penned columns in which he criticized Saudi policies.

In recent months, Khashoggi moved to Istanbul and planned to marry Hatice Cengiz, a local graduate student. Last Tuesday, in preparation for his wedding with Cengiz, Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on a prescheduled visit, reportedly to request a document certifying his divorce from his former wife in Saudi Arabia. The document was reportedly required under Turkish marital law. But The Washington Post columnist has not been seen since. On Sunday, Turkish government officials said that Khashoggi had been brutally murdered inside the Saudi consulate, probably on orders of the Saudi government. Turkish media reports said on Sunday that a 15-member Saudi team arrived in Istanbul shortly prior to Khashoggi’s visit to the consulate. The team, whose members carried diplomatic passports, tortured and then killed Khashoggi, said Turkish sources. They then dismembered his body and took it out of the consulate hidden inside a diplomatic vehicle.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia denied the charges and said that Khashoggi left the consulate in Istanbul less than an hour after entering it on Tuesday afternoon. But Turkish officials, speaking anonymously to local media, said that the government had “concrete proof” and that the case would be solved soon through a series of public announcements. However, no accusations have been issued publicly and some doubt that Ankara has evidence to implicate the Saudi government in Khashoggi’s disappearance. Others wonder whether the Turkish government will wish to enter into an escalating diplomatic confrontation with the powerful Saudi royal family. The New York Times said late on Sunday that the Turkish government “was waiting until the investigation was complete” before making a full disclosure regarding Khashoggi’s disappearance. Meanwhile government representatives in the United States, a close ally of the Saudi government, said on Sunday that the Department of State “cannot confirm Mr. Khashoggi’s fate” and that it is “following the case”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 October 2018 | Permalink

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Saudi state spies on dissidents in Canada using software built by Israeli firm

October 2, 2018 by 1 Comment

Embassy of Saudi Arabia in CanadaThe government of Saudi Arabia is spying on expatriate dissidents in Canada using commercially available software designed by an Israeli company, according to researchers at the University of Toronto. This is alleged in a new report published on Monday by the Citizen Lab, a research unit of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, which focuses on information technology, international security and human rights. The report’s authors say they have “high confidence” that intrusive surveillance software is being deployed to target the electronic communications of Saudi dissidents, including Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi activist who has been living in Canada’s Quebec province for nearly 10 years.

Abdulaziz, 27, arrived in Canada on a student visa in 2009. In 2014, having publicly voiced criticisms of the Saudi royal family and Saudi Arabia’s repressive political system, and having been threatened by Saudi authorities, Abdulaziz successfully applied for political asylum in Canada. In 2017 he was granted permanent residency status. For the past eight years, Abdulaziz has become increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Saudi government, mostly through his satirical channel on YouTube. The channel, called Yakathah, has over 120,000 subscribers and its content has angered Saudi authorities. The latter have warned Abdulaziz’s parents and last summer arrested two of his brothers, in what he describes as attempts to silence him.

Researchers from Citizen Lab claim that the Saudi government has been targeting expatriate dissidents such as Abdulaziz using various techniques, such as sending them spyware-infested messages that express support for anti-government demonstrations in Saudi Arabia. The report also notes that these messages make use of Pegasus, a surveillance software system that has been previously implicated in surveillance activities against political dissidents from Gulf countries. The software was designed by NSO Group Technologies, an Israeli digital surveillance company based in Herzliya, a small coastal town located north of Tel Aviv.

The Citizen Lab report comes at a time of heightened tensions in relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia. In August, Canada’s Global Affairs Ministry issued sharp criticisms of the Saudi government’s human rights record, while Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said she was “gravely concerned” about the suppression of political speech in the Kingdom. She also urged the Saudi government to release a number of jailed political activists and stop censoring Saudi women activists seeking gender equality. But her comments enraged the Saudi royal family, which controls the Kingdom. Within days, the Saudi government expelled Canada’s ambassador from Riyadh and restricted its economic ties with Canada. The Kingdom also recalled several thousand Saudi students who were studying in Canadian universities on Saudi government scholarships.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 02 October 2018 | Permalink

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US spy agency to help human rights groups monitor North Korea

March 5, 2018 by Leave a comment

NGAThe National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), one of America’s most secretive spy organizations, will work with a number of human-rights groups to monitor human rights in North Korea, according to a senior NGA official. Formed in 1996 as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the NGA operates under the supervision of the US Department of Defense. It is tasked with supporting US national security by collecting, analyzing and distributing geospatial intelligence. It also performs a combat-support mission for the Pentagon. The agency collects most of its data from satellites, surveillance aircraft and unmanned surveillance drones. Headquartered in a vast 2.3 million square foot building in Washington, the NGA is known for its secretive nature and rarely makes headlines.

Recently, however, NGA data expert Chris Rasmussen told Foreign Policy that the agency is finalizing an innovative agreement to work with human rights groups on North Korea. Rasmussen, a longtime military analyst, said that the NGA would provide the groups with access to raw imagery collected through airborne reconnaissance, and would share with them analyses by its experts. The groups would also be able to use a digital imagery application developed by NGA for use by its analysts. The human rights groups specialize on human rights in North Korea and have in the past used commercial satellite imagery data to help locate mass execution sites and mass graves in the secretive Asian country. They have also been able to locate concentration camps and have evaluated the impact of natural disasters in North Korea. Now the NGA will share its intelligence collection arsenal with these groups, in an attempt to shed further light on the state of human rights in North Korea.

Rasmussen said he could not yet reveal the names of the human rights groups that the NGA is preparing to work with, nor give details about the precise topics that the collaboration would focus on, because the official agreements are still being formalized. However, he said that no US intelligence agency had ever worked so closely with human rights organizations. “This kind of collaboration has never been done before with an intelligence agency”, said Rasmussen. He added that the NGA is hoping to use this collaboration as an incubator to “expand to other areas” with human rights groups and think tanks.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 05 March 2018 | Permalink

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Egypt president removes spy officials following damning human-rights report

July 5, 2016 by 1 Comment

Abdel Fatah al-SisiSeventeen senior Egyptian intelligence officials were summarily removed from their posts hours after the government’s human-rights monitoring body issued a damning report of violations by security agencies. The removal of the officers was announced on Sunday in the official journal of the Egyptian government, in an article that bore the signature of Egypt’s President, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It listed the names of 17 senior officers of Egypt’s feared General Intelligence Directorate (GID). The article said the 17 would go into early retirement “based on their own requests”, but provided no information on the reasons why they allegedly asked to retire as a group, or who will replace them.

The announcement of the intelligence officers’ removal came shortly after the publication of the annual report on the state of human rights in Egypt by the country’s official government monitoring organization. Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights said in its 2016 report, published over the weekend, that the rights of citizens have “not yet become a priority for the state”. It added that the state of human rights in Egypt remains alarmingly poor despite the adoption of the country’s new constitution in 2014. Egyptian and international rights monitoring organizations claim that as many as 60,000 people have been arrested for political reasons since 2013, when the military overthrew the government of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, following months of protests against his administration.

Focusing on the period between April 2015 and March of this year, the report lists over 260 cases of enforced disappearances of individuals, of which 143 remain under what is termed by the authorities “pretrial detention”. The report further notes that “pretrial detention”, which is often indefinite, has become “a punishment in itself”, and points out that the numbers of prisoners currently held pretrial detention centers exceed their capacity three times over. Consequently, pretrial detainees are forced to “take turns sleeping due to lack of space”, says the report. It also criticizes Egypt’s security and intelligence services for failing to curb the use of torture, which remains widespread despite its condemnation by the government and the conviction of several police and security officers who were found to have tortured detainees to death.

The removal of the 17 senior GID officers highlights the embattled state and internal divisions that continue to plague the Sisi administration, two years after the military strongman assumed power in the country, following a military coup. His administration has focused largely on a violent crackdown against the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which includes the imposition of death sentences on hundreds of thousands of people who were convicted in mass trials. Sisi’s legitimacy is disputed by the Muslim Brotherhood —arguably Egypt’s most popular social movement— and secularist reformers, who boycotted en masse the election that propelled him to the presidency. Sisi won with 97 percent of the vote in a heavily boycotted ballot that was reminiscent of the staged elections held by longtime Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. At the same time, however, Sisi is facing challenges from within the military and intelligence services, which some believe may be planning another coup. In June 2014, a less than a month after taking office, SIS replaced 14 senior GID officials. He fired another 11 a year later, while 13 more were forced to retire last December.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 05 July 2016 | Permalink

 

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