About one week back a Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get papers to marry his Turkish fiance, and disappeared. When he did not come out after 10 hours his fiance Hatice Cengiz called the police. Turkey has alleged that the Saudis murdered Khashoggi inside the embassy, dismembered his body and took it back to Saudi Arabia. They have released photographs of 15 men who, they say, constituted a hit squad, who arrived by two private planes to Istanbul, booked into hotels near the consulate and flew out within hours of the disappearance of Khashoggi. One plane flew via Dubai and the other via Cairo. Khashoggi had been living in self exile in the US for over a year and used to write for the Washington Post, so Donald Trump has apparently asked the kingdom to get to the bottom of his disappearance. In its delusions of being a world power, Britain has demanded answers of the Saudi government. Naturally, questions are being asked by the US, Europe and Middle-East countries but there is nothing like the level of outrage which exploded when Israeli Mossad agents assassinated the chief weapons negotiator for Hamas Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel in Dubai in 2010. Now the response seems limited to questions and not outrage. Why? Because they looked the other way for all these years when Crown Prince Mohd bin Salman of Saudi Arabia organized a poorly disguised coup to grab all the power in the kingdom. The official crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef was summoned to the palace of the king who ordered him to step down and when he refused he was kept confined in the palace until he surrendered. Mohd bin Salman was promoted to crown prince. Earlier he had launched a brutal bombing campaign on Yemen which has failed to defeat the Iran supported Houthi rebels but has caused a massive famine and an epidemic of cholera. Last year around 200 men, including at least 11 princes, were arrested and tortured at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh. They had to buy their freedom by paying billions of dollars. Even after release from the Ritz-Carlton they were kept under house arrest. Earlier this year there were reports of an assassination attempt on Mohd bin Salman. Anyone accusing MBS, as Salman is known, of corruption is sent to prison. Why have all the Western countries been silent till now? Because women have been allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia for the first time. Now that Khashoggi was probably murdered in a foreign country all these governments, which are usually quick lecture other nations on law and order. are mumbling about asking questions. Maybe the Saudis will use female drivers to drive the hearse.
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