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Methods, murders and madness

Published : Tuesday, 23 October, 2018 at 12:00 AM  Count : 778
Shahriar Feroze
Shahriar Feroze

Shahriar Feroze

After over two weeks of nail-biting suspense, the Saudi authorities have finally succumbed to the dirty truth -- Jamal Khashoggi was murdered -- and the gruesome incident took place inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. However, the truth behind the dissident journalist's murder was in the air from the very beginning when he was reported to have been missing, and now the truth admitted by the Saudi authorities will only deepen the crisis.

What puzzles this writer from a technical standpoint -- how could the planning to murder a renowned journalist could be such poorly planned and implemented? My readers do not actually have to dig too deeper to understand it. Visit the BBC webpage and go through the few well explained news links of JK's killing, and almost all of you would be surprised.

From the Saudi consulate's CCTV footage of the journalist entering the consulate, audio recordings, to how the hit squad flew in-and-out of Istanbul by using private jets are all available in the net. Digital images of flying routes used by the private jets have been clearly chalked out. Nearby hotels even registered a number of key Saudi suspects to have participated in the killing. Moreover, based on national identities of people travelling to Istanbul, Turkish officials reported all the assassins to be Saudi officials and intelligence officers - an allegation that appears to be supported by open source.
The Turkish intelligence authorities went as far as to confirm the type of weapon used in the murder, the group brought a bone saw into the country and one of the hit squad members was a doctor who specialised in post-mortems. The million dollars question however, why was it deemed necessary to deploy an entire hit squad to murder a single individual? Was JK heavily protected and followed around by armed escorts?

Placing myself in the shoes of the assassins, this writer would have either employed a sniper to shoot him from a distance or invite JK at a restaurant and have him murdered by carefully putting poison in his coffee cup or champagne glass. Targeting the victim in the famous Georgi Markov fashion by injecting a micro-engineered pellet containing Ricin and then shoot into his leg from an umbrella would not have been bad either.

But JK killing reminds me of the Bengali proverb " Mosha marte kamaan daga" ( deploying a cannon to kill a mosquito)
Nevertheless, JK has been reported to visit the consulate for purely private reasons - settle his divorce matters and clear the path for getting married to his Turkish fiancé - and his second visit at the consulate had sealed his end. That said -- even though a consulate or an embassy is the respective independent territory of that country in a foreign land, but the risk factors for conducting a murder inside and to get away with it is not easy, and especially if the victim is a renowned person. Choosing the Saudi consulate building to evade all suspicion in that regard was a massive blunder, since the corpse needs to be taken and discarded at some point of time.

I assume the actual reason behind killing and then dismembering the body is deeply rooted to an unimaginable length of hatred and ego for the victim. And if that was the case then JK should have been murdered inside Saudi Arabia where it would have been possible to effectively cover up the entire incident. However, the blessing in disguise now would be almost all embassies and consulates scattered across the globe will become vigilant on what's going inside their specified and demarcated independent territories, otherwise foreign missions.   

Coming back on the topic of JK's assassination plot -- if it was a joint operation undertaken by the Saudi national intelligence -- the plot's visible weaknesses and flaws is a shocking eye-opener to highly incompetent Saudi state machinery. The protagonist's identity to have designed the dangerously flawed scheme is yet not disclosed, but the plotter, I assume a 'he' and not 'she', should be immediately brought to book.

Easily anticipated, this single murder case will have devastating geopolitical and economic repercussions on the Saudi kingdom. And if that happens, it would only be for a poorly planned murder. Don't get this writer wrong, for sure he condemns all forms of killing anywhere and anywhere around the world. But had the Saudi killers foresee the horrible cost of murdering JK in a poor fashion, they would have probably engaged Mossad in the killing mission.

When it comes to planning and implementing sinister international killing missions -- the world truly envy the national intelligence agency of Israel. The agency's latest victim was the renowned Syrian scientist Aziz Asbar - Syria's most important rocket scientist, bent on amassing an arsenal of precision-guided missiles that could be launched with pinpoint accuracy against Israeli cities hundreds of miles away.

A simple car bomb did the job, and that too inside Syria's heavily defended military research organization at Masyaf. It is believed to be the fourth killing mission by Israel in 3 years against an enemy weapons expert on foreign soil, according to a senior official of a Middle Eastern intelligence agency. Rather fascinatingly, as per a common perception we know who is behind the killings, but there is no sign of any concrete evidence to be found here or there. No wonder about the optimum usage of funds by Mossad's R&D department behind conducting the international killing spree.

Understandably, killing missions require accurate information, knowledge and the proper method for eliminating a target on the right time at the right place. Most importantly, apart from eliminating the target the assassin needs to eliminate clues and his track record. In that respect, JK's murder appears to be slaughtering of a well desired cattle, but in the wrong place at the wrong time, and also by the wrong people. And given the wealth of clues and evidences left behind, it won't be too difficult to identify the kingpin of JK's murder.

Before I finish, there is often a plan behind a person's apparently bizarre actions, meaning a method behind the madness. In JK's killing -- there was only madness, no method.

The writer is in-charge of the editorial section, The Daily Observer


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