Report: Saudi crown prince authorized secret campaign to crush dissent

More than a year before Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved a secret — and brutal — plan to crush dissent, using surveillance, abduction, and torture, U.S. officials who read classified intelligence reports on the matter told The New York Times.

Saudi citizens were targeted around the world, with a special team — called the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group by U.S. officials — involved in at least 12 operations beginning in 2017, the Times reports. This is the same team that killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

After being captured and brought back to the kingdom, the Saudi citizens were housed in palaces belonging to the crown prince and his father, King Salman, the Times reports, with many tortured during interrogations. Loujain al-Hathloul was detained for trying to drive her car into Saudi Arabia from the United Arab Emirates, and her sister, Alia, said she was locked inside a tiny room with covered windows. During interrogations, al-Hathloul and others were routinely beat, shocked, waterboarded, and told they would be raped and murdered, the intelligence reports state. Due to the psychological torture, she attempted to take her own life.

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A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington told the Times the government "takes any allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously." Read more about the secret campaign at The New York Times.