A senior Saudi official has launched a death threat against UN investigator Agnes Callamard, following her investigation into the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, newspaper The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
In an interview with the British newspaper, the outgoing Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Killings said that a UN colleague alerted her in January 2020 to the fact that an anonymous Saudi official had twice threatened to “take care of her.”
She said the comments were seen as a “death threat” by her colleagues.
Callamard, a French national, will join human rights watchdog Amnesty International as Secretary General this month, according to the report.
She was the first official to investigate the murder of Washington Post columnist Khashoggi, who was tortured and brutally killed by Saudi agents at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, and published a detailed report on the matter.
Khashoggi was a former royal insider who often criticised the Saudi government.
In the 100-page report released in June 2019, Callamard said Khashoggi’s death “constituted an extrajudicial murder for which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible.”
The report also says Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) should be investigated in regards to the murder.
Last month, an unclassified U.S. intelligence report also concluded that MBS approved and likely ordered Khashoggi’s murder. The Saudi government has rejected what they called “the negative, false and unacceptable assessment of the report.”
Saudi Arabia has said Khashoggi was killed in a “rogue operation” by agents, and MBS has repeatedly denied ordering the act
