All language subtitles for The.Dissident.2020.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-TEPES.eng

I didn't want to believe
in the beginning,

what happened to Jamal.

Prominent Saudi journalist

andWashington Post columnist

has gone missing
after visiting

his country's consulate
in Istanbul.

Yes, I knew that I was
doing something dangerous.

But I didn't know that,
you know,

we're going to lose
so many lives because of it.

On Tuesday, Jamal Khashoggi

entered the Saudi consulate

in Istanbul
but hasn't been seen since.

Saudi and Turkish officials

have given conflicting accounts

on the whereabouts
of Jamal Khashoggi,

who's known for criticizing

Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman's policy

inside Saudi Arabia.

Once an adviser and friend

of Saudi's royal and elites,

he now lives in self-exile
in the U.S.

and is an outspoken critic
of his government's policies.

Turkish authorities believe

prominent Saudi journalist,

Jamal Khashoggi,
has been killed.

...what I want in my retirement.

I'm 60 years old,
and I want to enjoy life,

and I want to be free.

Unfortunately,
the government treated me

as if I shot the King,
God forbid, and I ran away.

As I am a traitor.

After his death,

Jamal became a hero.

We cry when we hear
that the hero is killed.

But his works,

his cause, his vision,

it would live forever.

What do you know
about the bees?

We know from here that

he entered this embassy
and didn't come out.

...in Istanbul, seekingpaperwork to marry his fiancée.

His fiancée saw him
go in at 1:00 p.m.

and was still waiting
for him after 1:00 a.m.

MALE REPORTER 1 :
Saudi officials
have denied that

a prominent Saudi journalist
is in their custody.

Jamal Khashoggi has
reportedly been missing

for more than 24 hours.

Turkey says that
they will be cooperating

with Saudi authorities
to resolve the incident.

The consulate said
it had no comment

when asked why
he never came out.

Can you tell me what
happened to Mr. Khashoggi?

What happened
to Mr. Khashoggi?

Did you talk to him?

Okay.

Jamal--

Jamal Khashoggi.

Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi.

Right. Okay.

What year was that,
Jamal, that you graduated?

-Eighty-one. Yes.
-Nineteen eighty-one?

Business Administration degree from Indiana State.

But since then, I'm happy
to see from his biography,

Jamal is a rara avis,
at least in our society,

full-time long-term
professional journalist.

He doesn't seem tempted
to be doing anything else.

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy.

I mean, the king has ruled
that it should happen.

-On Twitter?
-On Twitter.

I was criticizing everything

except the royal family.

But I didn't have
a very huge audience.

I was just a regular guy
with hundred followers.

The Saudi King's jet carries

its own royal staircase.

Waiting at the bottom of it at Gatwick Airport this morning

were the Prince
and Princess of Wales.

The king of one
of the most closed
societies in the world

looking at ease
in this more open one.

The Saudi government
and the monarchy

has evolved significantly
over the last 80 years,

basically,
since the kingdom was founded.

The founder of Saudi Arabia,
King Abdulaziz,

had about 37 sons or so.

And political power,
as well as economic power,

was distributed
among those sons.

A pivotal country
saw a lavish welcome

for the man who controls

nearly half the world's
oil reserves.

Once King Abdulaziz died,

the crown was passed through

to his son,

to his son, to his son.

King Salman became the king

and the game
has completely changed.

A new king
reigns in a country

with enormous sway
over the world economy

and the war on terror.

While in the past, the king really had to rely on

a lot of his brothers in order to govern the kingdom.

When they passed
from the scene,

more and more powers
concentrated

in the hands of his heirs,

and that's the situation
we have today.

Saudi Arabia has granted

Turkish investigators permission to enter and search.

This is history.

Protesters forcing change earlier this year in Tunisia,

now succeeding
in forcing change in Egypt

after nearly 30 years
of Mubarak rule.

That's two Arab leaders
in two months.

Arab governments are watching closely,

wary that a revolution
might be headed

to their country next.

The military's crackdown
on opposition in Egypt

had resulted in over
14,000 people thrown in jail.

John, good morning.

I'm on a new phone.

Uh, this is temporary.

Let's not exchange sensitive
information until you arrive.

But this is how to get
in touch with me until then.

I tell people
that Jamal and I

were not supposed
to be friends.

I mean, I'm a pretty
well-known dissident.

But in 2012, he started
following me on Twitter.

He was very interested
in social media

in terms of the phenomena.

Saudi Arabia has
an unprecedented
online population.

We know that
there's no free speech.

So, Twitter became
the parliament of the Arabs.

...already proposed a series

of economic and social changes

under the banner
of Saudi Vision 2030.

The highly anticipated
2030 Vision

seems to radically change
the image of the Kingdom.

The man behind it all,

Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman,

is regarded
as a progressive leader,

touting social
and economic reforms.

And critics say, MBS,

as he's known,
is also power hungry.

I had met Mohammed Salman

when he was Chief of Staff
to his father.

We understood
that he was very ambitious,

a very impatient,
and a favorite son.

He pushed aside
King Salman's half-brother,

Prince Muqrin and the Crown
Prince, Muhammad Nayef.

He's being described as the power behind the throne,

and has had a hand in nearly
everything in the Kingdom.

He is emancipating women,

introducing music and cinema,

and cracking down
on corruption.

This is an American first,

never before has a president
set foot

on Saudi soil
for his first trip abroad.

America will not seek to impose
our way of life on others,

but to outstretch our hands

in the spirit
of cooperation and trust.

What my sources told me

was the Saudis and Mohammed
bin Salman, in particular,

were trying to forge
a relationship

with people
in The White House,

and most particularly
with Jared Kushner,

who's the President's
son-in-law and Senior Advisor.

Three billion dollars,

$533 million,

$525 million.

That's peanuts for you.

You should've increased it.
Eight hundred...

He said that he's milking
the country.

I'm sure
Saudi Arabian officials

were caught off-guard

by the election
of Mr. Trump. Now...

I think all of us, as Saudis,
should worry about it.

I strongly believe that
the struggle for democracy

in the Middle East
are the core of all problems.

When Jamal heard
that statement,

he was shocked.

By 2017,

Jamal had an enormous audience.

MBS put together a plan
to control the public sphere.

Saud al-Qahtani,
MBS's right-hand man,

managed
to implement this plan...

...creating Twitter army
of trolls

to control
the freedom of speech.

Al-Qahtani worked behind the scenes

as an enforcer
for the Crown Prince.

Qahtani was known
for targeting those

who spoke out
against Riyadh on Twitter.

They're not dissidents.

The people were
not even being dissidents.

These were the thought-makers,

the opinion-makers
of Saudi society.

Writers and intellectuals.

For the first time,
we are now hearing

from the fiancée of WashingtonPost reporter Jamal Khashoggi...

...has called on U.S. lawmakers

to hold
Saudi Arabia accountable.

His fiancée says
she'll fight to ensure

everyone who is responsible
for his death

is brought to justice.

Yeah. I need 10 minutes.

Yes.

We need
to cross the opening...

Absolutely. But let's go...

If we can just announce
the press briefing.

And is there any questions?

If there's questions,
we cannot...

I said,
"But here's the thing.

Not every single one
of them trusts you."

You are saying that
Jamal might be a spy.

I met Jamal in Washington

after a manor
connected me to him.

I think we bonded a lot
over food. Heh.

Like most, I guess,
Middle Easterners.

He told me that
he had moved to the U.S.

and that he was all alone

and didn't know
what was happening

for the first time
in his life at age 60.

I remember
he started tearing up,

telling me how his wife whom
he had loved very, very much,

she wasn't okay with it.

She-- Nobody was.

His kids weren't okay with it.

Nobody was okay with it.

Everything was left behind

and the country--
60 years of his life--

everything.

He struggled with it
every single day.

In Saudi Arabia,
he was the biggest insider.

And then, all of a sudden,
he finds himself

on the outside,

on the very much outside.

I felt, like, for him
to settle emotionally,

mentally, physically,
he needed to write again.

I was a friend
of Jamal Khashoggi's

for about 15 years.

When he came toThe Washington
Post, he was transported.

This was something
that he had dreamed about.

You have to understand
what it's like

to be a journalist
in Saudi Arabia.

Every time
you try to say something

that's tough-minded,
you get fired.

He was the sort of person that just couldn't take a pass.

If he felt something, he just insisted on writing it.

I watched him get fired

from a series of jobs
in Saudi Arabia,

each time because
he just couldn't stop himself

from saying
what he thought was true.

All we want from you this time

is to like and subscribe.

We're seeing a truly historic
upheaval unfold right now.

A royal purge in Saudi Arabia.

King Salman
ordered the creation

of a new
anti-corruption committee

headed by son,
Prince Mohammed Salman.

November of 2017,

Mohammed Bin Salman
basically rounds up

the most powerful people
in Saudi Arabia,

puts them
in the Ritz in Riyadh,

basically a five-star prison,

and shakes them down
for a lot of money,

over a $100 billion.

Mohammed Bin Salman
ordered the arrest

of powerful princes,
ministers, and investors.

Some are his rivals
in the royal family.

Is this also about
sending a message that,

as we say in America,
there's a new sheriff in town?

Jamal was starting
to realize that

there's little
he can do for his country

from his position
other than to write.

Jamal Khashoggi
was kind of a black box

of the ruling elites
in Saudi Arabia.

It is easy to sit
and say we need,

particularly in front
of American audience,

we need more freedom,
we need more--

these are golden things.

Everybody loves them.

--You have to be practical.

I'm not asking
for democracy,

I'm asking for people
to be allowed to speak.

This is--
I'm asking for the minimum.

In summer 2018,

they were attacking him
basically every single day,

threatening him,
trying to silence him.

So Jamal felt the whole country was against him.

And that was hurting him.

He said, "Sometimes,
I feel a lot like

"I don't wanna talk
about anything.

I don't wanna expose
my opinions."

I said, "No, no, no.

You're just a victim
of what we call the Flies."

The government hired
thousands of people.

Every one of them using
10, 20 accounts.

The moment they think critic
of the government has posted,

the flies swarmed,

attacking with hundreds
of negative replies.

Within minutes,
the tweet is covered

in pro-government
comments and hashtags,

causing the person's voice
to be lost.

Then each fly posts
pro-government articles

and hashtags,
supporting MBS's vision.

And all of the fly can repost
thousands of those tweets...

forcing the state's
false narrative

to the top of trending
inside the country.

This is
the whole Twitter monster

that Saud al-Qahtani created

and you have the troll master
himself on the top.

I could get hundreds of
volunteers from Saudi Arabia,

Kuwait, Yemen,
other countries.

Each armed
with two, three phones,

generating hundreds
of accounts.

But first
we would have to make sure

that they are protected.

Anyone tweeting
inside Saudi Arabia

will be immediately identified

since the government
owns all this other networks.

So to mask their identities,

we must give them American
or Canadian safeguards.

To battle The Flies,

we will call ourselves
The Bees Army.

We would organize
the volunteers

into groups of 40 or 50 bees,

each reporting
to a supervising lieutenant.

Once I give the command,
each lieutenant

will tell their bee soldier
a specific tweet

or hashtag to protect.

But we're not going to use
the same method.

Give them the freedom

to say whatever they want.

The Flies will,
of course, attack.

But if our numbers
are stronger,

we will be able to rise above
the propaganda machine...

and finally install freedom
of speech inside the Kingdom.

Jamal was really happy
of the idea.

He said, "Brilliant, I really like it."

Focusing all our efforts
on one hashtag,

#wható_doóyouó_knowóabout
ó_the óbees?

So the moment he left,

they called
Saud al-Qahtani's office?

And that was the turning point.

It started trending.

Jamal was surprised,
so then he started

to tweet with us,
he tweeted it.

And then we did it.

Number one trending
in Saudi Arabia.

And suddenly...

he's not answering.

He's just gone, disappeared.

When I heard this,
I was driving to my house.

My friends calling me
continuously.

Come on, Jamal Khashoggi.

It's news.

I called a couple
of journalists based in Istanbul

like Reuters,
Al Jazeera,Washington Post.

There's really not a playbook
for this type of situation,

but we did know that
we needed to act quickly.

Within hours, we had
a letter dispatched
through the ambassador

and through the United States government to the Crown Prince.

I'd ask to meet with
the Saudi ambassador of the U.S.

who happens to be the brother
of the Crown Prince.

First response was that
he was looking into the matter.

First day, there was
10 or 12 journalists

waiting outside.

The day after, hundreds.

He entered this embassy...

Two days later, 200.

We demand his immediate release
if alive.

I am concerned about it.

I don't like hearing about it.

And hopefully,
that will sort itself out.

Right now, nobody knows
anything about it,

but there's somepretty bad stories going around.

I do not like it.
Thank you. I'll see you.

I'll see you at 10:00.

I will not let you down

and I will not stop
defending you.

Always be well.

To breaking news now,
we are getting reports

that Turkish authorities
believe that

prominent Saudi journalist

Jamal Khashoggi
has been killed.

-Jamal Khashoggi--
-Jamal Khashoggi--

We heard
one lie after another

from the Saudi government.

Saudi Arabia has denied angrily

that it abducted, harmed,
or killed Khashoggi.

Now suddenly,
the country is admitting

that Khashoggi did die
inside that building.

We heard that
he suffocated accidentally.

We heard that there was
a drug administered

that had an unintended effect.

The government now says
he died in a fist fight.

A Saudi agent was captured
on surveillance cameras

in Istanbul
wearing Khashoggi's clothes.

The Washington Post
has just posted

the last piece
Jamal Khashoggi wrote,

filed shortly
before he was seen

entering that Saudi consulate
in Turkey.

Tonight, there are still
many unanswered questions

in his disappearance.

Earlier today,
Turkish investigators

search the residence of...

This one.

The court
has issued arrest warrants

for two additional suspects

in the killing
of Jamal Khashoggi.

Ahmed al-Asiri
was the country's
Deputy Intelligence Chief

and high-ranking adviser
to the Crown Prince.

Saud al-Qahtani
was a Royal Court Adviser

and key counselor to Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The chief prosecutor
who's been holding

a joint investigation with his Saudi counterpart this week

issued a statement
following their talks.

He says discussions yielded
no concrete results,

despite Turkey's intentions
to reveal the truth.

Sir, can you say anything
from the investigation?

Where is Khashoggi's body?

My name is John Scott-Railton.

I'm a senior researcher
at a place called
The Citizen Lab.

It's this group of
researchers and investigators

that try to understand

the digital things

that are targeting
civil society,

so journalists,
activists, everybody really,

who's part of what constitutes
a flourishing democracy.

It's almost a miracle
that we found Omar.

It's a miracle that
he survived this long.

There's sort of a growing
global market for spyware.

Governments want to listen
to encrypted phone calls.

They wanna read
your WhatsApp chats,

your Signal chats,
and they can't do it

as that chat
goes across their network.

So, their solution to this is,
let's hack the phone.

Was the CIA aware

that the Saudis had purchased
spyware from Israel?

I'm not going
to confirm or deny.

That's either--
We're aware of certain things.

All's I will say is that
the Saudi services

are able to have insight
into what their citizens

or what even non-Saudi citizens
were doing

inside the Kingdom
and outside.

Saudi Arabia is definitely

a major player in the space.

Throughout my entire career,
I focused on the top four--

Russia, China,
Iran, North Korea.

And I think it's safe to say
that Saudi Arabia

has comparable skills
and abilities

to conduct cyber operations.

I think it's important
for people to understand

how easy it is
to access these tools.

Thanks to an Israeli company called NSO,

the Saudis have
the best hacking technology

that money can buy.

Pegasus Version Two.

Pegasus is a piece of software,

but it's also a capability,

it's the capability
to infect a phone

and turn it into a digital spy

in the pocket of the victim--

siphoning off private
and encrypted chats,

photographs, messages,

even enabling the microphone
and the camera,

turn that phone
into a bug in a room.

They sent a malicious link.

The link looks legit, you know, it looks like, for example,

you know, boarding pass,

you click on it and it actually goes where it's supposed to go,

but in between,
it's downloading something

into your device.

Once it compromises
mobile devices,

the end user
of the Pegasus tool

has unfettered access
to that device.

Think of your phone today,
the people you talk to,

the photos you take,
the places you go,

the things that you say around and into your phone, right?

This is a huge slice
of your life.

And that stuff
is tremendously valuable

to somebody who wants
to monitor you,

who wants to figure out
what you're doing

and maybe who wants to subvert

your political activity.

Once Pegasus takes control
of a phone, it's game over.

To share information, an infected device

is gonna be talking to
the servers that control it.

It has to phone home.

And so we had developed
a technique

to see what networks
might have infected devices.

So, what we found in Montreal

in December 2018

is that there appeared
to be a device

in the University Network
phoning home

to a cluster of servers
that belonged

to Saudi Arabia's
Pegasus deployment.

So, we go to Montreal, we sit with Omar

and actually find
the message on Omar's phone

that we believe led
to that infection.

It looks like a DHL
shipping tracking notification.

Only it isn't.

Are you being allowed in?
Are the Saudis allowing you in?

Some of the tape
recordings we've heard

preceded the killing.

"Joints will be separated.

"It's not a problem.

The conversation turns to,

"Will you come back
to Saudi Arabia?"

The fear is escalating
in his voice.

Then we hear a struggle.

You can hear the other people

The most difficult part
of those recordings

I was thinking, when
he entered his consulate...

The king firmly denied
any knowledge of it.

I don't wanna get
into his mind.

But it sounded to me like

maybe these could have been
rogue killers. Who knows?

World leaders are
gathering in Saudi Arabia

for a summit commonly known
as "Davos in the desert."

A couple weeks
after the murder,

there was a big, important
conference for Saudi Arabia.

Davos in the desert is supposed to promote Saudi Crown Prince,

Mohammed bin Salman's reform vision for the Kingdom.

Davos in the desert is the make or break part of Vision 2030.

But it ended up being
a fiasco for MBS.

The Jamal story

galvanized public attention

in the United States,
around the world.

It may destroy MBS' hopes
for modernizing the Kingdom

because he needs investors,

he needs people who invest
in the Kingdom.

And right now,
he has become toxic.

As pressure on Saudi mounts,

several U.S. media organizationsand business leaders

have pulled out of
a major investment
conference in Riyadh.

The conference happens,

all those important guests
eventually don't go.

Jeff Bezos was supposed
to be a secret guest.

Bezos is someone with a direct relationship with MBS.

They messaged each other.

They talked about business.
They talked about, you know,

all the great things
they're gonna do together.

And he was supposed to declare

this enormous deal
at this conference.

But after the murder,

Bezos just stopped
all contact with MBS.

Bezos owns
The Washington Post,

which means that
Jamal worked for him.

It seemed that MBS expected
Bezos to say, "You know what?

"I control this newspaper

and I can curb them.
I can tell them,

you know, don't make
a big deal about this."

But when push came to shove,
Bezos did not interfere

whenThe Washington Post
started a whole campaign.

"Justice for Jamal".

MBS saw that as betrayal.

After Davos in the desert,

we have evidence

that Jeff Bezos' phone

had been infected
with malware.

And the way in which
that technology was delivered

to his phone was through a text

from the Crown Prince himself.

I am the United Nations
Special Rapporteur

on Freedom of Opinion
and Expression.

The work that I've been doing
over the last 18 months or so

is on the private
surveillance industry.

A video was sent in 2018

from MBS' WhatsApp account

to Jeff Bezos' phone.

Then we see
this massive increase

in data leaving the phone.

It was only after

the killing of Jamal Khashoggi

thatThe Washington Post
was an important target

for Saudi Arabia.

This was exactly the moment
whenThe National Enquirer

was saying to Bezos,

"We have evidence
connecting you to an affair."

So Bezos' security team
is learning

that his phone
may have been compromised.

But at the same time,

Bezos is getting
WhatsApp messages

from MBS that are strange.

Essentially,
"Whatever you're hearing

about Saudi involvement
in this is not true."

In order to send
those kinds of text messages,

MBS has to know

what Bezos is learning
about Saudi involvement.

And then what we see is that

there's this massive
Saudi online campaign,

a Twitter campaign,

against Jeff Bezos.

The intention
was to humiliate

and to punish Bezos.

It was exactly the same thing
that they did to Jamal.

That mere fact that
MBS has the reach

to conduct surveillance on the richest man in the world

is not only striking,
but it's scary.

Earlier today, CIA Director,
Gina Haspel briefed

a select group of high ranking senators on the killing

ofWashington Post columnist,
Jamal Khashoggi.

The CIA Director, Gina Haspel met with the Turks

and said, "Show me the audio.
Let me hear it."

The CIA Director's job is to present the information

to a policymaker so they can
make a decision on how to act.

This assessment was different.

If the Crown Prince
went in front of a jury,

he would be convicted
in 30 minutes.

Yes.

They're buying hundreds
of billions of dollars' worth

of things from this country.

I'm not gonna destroy
the economy for our country

by being foolish
with Saudi Arabia, so...

There's not a smoking gun,
there's a smoking saw.

You have to be willfully blind

not to come to the conclusionthat this was orchestrated

and organized by people in--
under the command of MBS.

Did MBS lie to you, sir?

He told me thathe had nothing to do with it.

-But what if he's lying?-As recently as a few days ago.

Did you just live with it
because you need him?

Well, will anybody
really know, all right?

Will anybody really know?

I have not seen,

in 20 years
covering intelligence,

the conclusion from the CIA
that is this confident

about the role
of one person in an act.

Everybody
but the President agrees

that Mohammed bin Salman
ordered

Jamal Khashoggi's
assassination.

Nine, eight, seven...

The first day they broadcast,

Jamal invites Shiite dissidents on the air,

who were the people
who the Bahrainian
authorities most feared.

Are we so blind

to the malign influence
of Saudi Arabia

that we just give
money and weapons

to anybody regardless
of what they do?

You can cut a dissident
into pieces with a bone saw

and we'll
still give you weapons?

Thank you.

I now give the floor
to Saudi Arabia.

Thank you.

Accusations have been launched

and fingers have been pointed,

we reject any attempt
to remove this

from our national justice
system in Saudi Arabia

in respect to the form
that that may take.

Many thanks.

Did you order
the murder of Jamal Khashoggi?

Absolutely not.

Some think that I should know

what three million
people working

for the Saudi government
do daily?

Absolutely not.

My name is Hatice Cengiz.

I'm addressing you
as a victim,

a title forced on me after
the brutal murder of my Jamal.

Jamal and I would have been
husband and wife by now.

The failure to punish Jamal's
murderers affects us all.

But also democracy,
human rights, and freedom.

Mr. Chair,
the truth always wins.

History will take note.

Please take action.
Thank you.

Hatice, you paced that street

and waiting for hours.

No one should ever have
to endure what you did.

We are here

and you are not alone.