Saudia Arabia finally admitted that Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, and as the public is demanding answers, some are seemingly taking matters into their own hands.
Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative conference, better known as “Davos in the Desert,” had its website allegedly hacked on Monday with an image supporting Khashoggi and attacking Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The hack, which has since been taken down, showed bin Salman standing over Khashoggi with a bloody sword and the word “ISIS” written on his clothes. Khashoggi is dressed as if he is part of an ISIS beheading, and two ISIS fighters stand at the ready on the side. On the image’s left, a pop-up reads “#TERRORISM_FINANCING,” and a message underneath the image calls on “all countries” to “put sanctions on the Saudi regime.”
“The regime, aligned with the United States, must be kept responsible for its barbaric and inhuman action, such as killing its own citizen Jamal Khashoggi and thousands of innocent people in Yemen,” the hack proclaimed. “The medieval Saudi regime is one of the sources for #Terrorism_Financing in the world.”
The alleged hack also included information on “a thousand terrorists and spies of the Saudi regime who perform malicious activities around the globe” and statistics on the terrorist organizations funded and civilian casualties that resulted from supposed Saudi investments, according to a screengrab from CBC News Network producer Nahayat Tizhoosh.
The site was later taken down and the hacked content removed, according to Tizhoosh.
'Davos in the Desert' site has been hacked @FIIKSA #Khashoggi pic.twitter.com/ddOr13Etr8
— Nahayat Tizhoosh (@NahayatT) October 22, 2018
And, now the site is down… pic.twitter.com/dF2gaKdbzw
— Nahayat Tizhoosh (@NahayatT) October 22, 2018
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Khashoggi disappeared on Oct. 2 after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Known for criticizing the Saudi government, its crown prince, and King Salman, Khashoggi fled from Saudi Arabia in September 2017.
While Saudi Arabia has since claimed Khashoggi died in a fistfight, Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes the Saudi journalist was “ferociously murdered” as part of a premeditated plan, USA Today reports. President Donald Trump has since attempted to protect an arms deal between the two countries, calling the attack a “plot gone awry.”
Executives and political officials around the world have since pulled out of “Davos in the Desert” amid Khashoggi’s death, including Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga, Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, CNN reports.
H/T the Verge