Jamal Khashoggi’s fate a ghastly reminder of price of standing up to Mohammed bin Salman

The fate of Jamal Khashoggi is a ghastly reminder of the price of standing up to the Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman.

Even before Jamal Khashoggi’s gruesome murder in Istanbul, Mohammed bin Salman was in trouble at home.

His appointment as crown prince broke a chain of succession that had the Saudi throne pass from brother to brother. It came at the expense of his uncle, Mohammed bin Nayef, who remains under house arrest and whose bank accounts have been drained.

Mohamed bin Salman, left, talks with Crown Prince and Mohammed bin Nayef.

The octogenarian King Salman, whose faculties are a matter of eternal debate in the kingdom, stepped back to leave the running of the country to his son, who set out to make his mark, casting aside the usual mode of governing by consensus among senior royals.

As deputy crown prince and defence minster, he pitched Saudi Arabia into a devastating war in Yemen that is draining finances and undermining the kingdom’s standing abroad as well as harming the reputations of those governments, in the Gulf, the US and UK, that support it.

As crown prince, he was behind the decision to blockade Saudi Arabia’s tiny but wealthy rival, Qatar, a move increasingly seen as a miscalculation. His vaunted reforms, such as allowing women to drive, came with a crackdown on dissent, rounding up activists, including those women who had campaigned for the right to drive, and sending Khashoggi fleeing abroad.

Perhaps most damaging of all for his standing at home, he seized powerful business executives and fellow princes, incarcerating them in the Riyadh Ritz Carlton and shaking them down for tens of millions of dollars.

Among those arrested and removed from office was Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, leader of the Saudi national guard, who enjoyed the support of many fellow princes. Senior royals complain that Prince Mohammed has curtailed their previous access to the king, leaving them with little outlet for their frustrations.

Portraits of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulazziz (R) and his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) are displayed in Riyadh.

At the same time, the crown prince himself has become aware of resentment building within the larger court. In fear of assassination, he is said to spend nights sleeping on his $US500 million, 440ft superyacht moored off Jeddah. The floating palace, bought even as he instituted austerity cuts, could also serve as an escape hatch should dissent escalate.

As the crisis over Khashoggi’s disappearance deepened, King Salman dispatched one of the old guard, Prince Khalid al-Faisal, to Istanbul on a damage control mission. Many saw this as a sign that the older generation was reasserting itself.

Yet having sacked senior apparatchiks close to the crown prince, the king then gave his son a vote of confidence, putting him in charge of restructuring the intelligence agencies.

Some in Saudi Arabia have looked to King’s Salman’s younger brother, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, 73, as a possible challenger. Video of him in London addressing protesters against the Yemen war and blaming the king and his son for the bloody debacle went viral at home.

He has stayed in London ever since, afraid of the crown prince’s ire. The fate of Khashoggi is a ghastly reminder of the price of standing up to MBS.

For now, at least, King Salman is the only one in the kingdom with the power to clip his wings and whether he will looks doubtful.

THE TIMES