Vakkas Doğantekin
22 January 2020•Update: 23 January 2020
ANKARA
UN rapporteurs Wednesday said the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, is possibly involved in the privacy violation and surveillance of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur on summary executions and extrajudicial killings, and David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, in a joint statement said: "The information we have received suggests the possible involvement of the crown prince in surveillance of Mr. Bezos, in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post's reporting on Saudi Arabia."
Multiple news outlets including the Guardian, Financial Times and Daily Beast reported on Tuesday that bin Salman, more commonly known as MBS, was behind the hacking of Bezos' phone in May 2018 by sending a video over WhatsApp messaging service, loaded with spyware in a bid to extract files.
Bezos also owns American daily Washington Post, where journalist Jamal Khashoggi used to write columns criticizing the repressive policies of the crown prince before his assassination by Saudi agents in Istanbul.
Hours after the scandal broke, Saudi Arabia's U.S. Embassy on Twitter late on Tuesday called the allegations "absurd".
"We call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out," the embassy added.
Saudi Arabian officials resorted to the same pattern after the killing of Khashoggi in October 2018 in the Istanbul consulate of the Kingdom; an immediate denial followed by calls for an investigation.
After months of investigation into Khashoggi's killing, brutal dismemberment and disappearance of his corpse, the UN and the CIA blamed MBS as the perpetrator.
The UN experts went on to say: "The allegations reinforce other reporting pointing to a pattern of targeted surveillance of perceived opponents and those of broader strategic importance to the Saudi authorities, including nationals and non-nationals."
"The alleged hacking of Mr. Bezos's phone, and those of others, demands immediate investigation by U.S. and other relevant authorities, including investigation of the continuous, multi-year, direct and personal involvement of the Crown Prince in efforts to target perceived opponents," the UN rapporteurs urged.
