Who Murdered Jamal Khashoggi: the Findings of Turkish Intelligence

Jamal Khashoggi: The Silencing of a Jounalist

Al Jazeera (2019)

Film Review

This documentary is a collation of Turkish intelligence findings in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Istanbul’s Saudi Consulate in October 2018. The evidence consists mainly of an audio recording of the murder (presumably Turkish intelligence had the Saudi Consulate bugged), forensic analysis of the Consulate interior, CCTV footage and interviews with a cab driver and a builder who constructed a massive incinerator outside the Saudi Consul’s home in April 2018. The documentary also features an exclusive interview with Hatice Congiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, who was waiting for him outside the Consulate.

Based on the audio recording, where Khashoggi is heard to say, “Don’t cover my mouth – I have asthma and I can’t breathe,” Turkish Intelligence concludes the Saudi hit team put a plastic bag over his head and choked him. He is heard to struggle for seven minutes before he succumbs.

It would take fifteen days and massive international pressure before Saudi intelligence allowed Turkish police inside the Consulate to conduct a forensic analysis. They discovered the walls had been recently repainted. After removing the new paint, they discovered traces of Khashoggi’s blood and fingerprints belonging to the hit team.

At present, Turkish intelligence believes his body was dismembered inside the Consulate and packed into suitcases. Within hours of the murder, there is CCTV footage of hit team members arriving at the Saudi Consul’s home with the suitcases.

The most gruesome evidence comes from a builder commissioned to build an enormous incinerator in the Saudi Consul’s back garden in April 2018. This coincides with the date Khashoggi began visiting Istanbul to court Hatice Congiz, leading eventually to their engagement.

Khashoggi was visiting the Saudi Consul to obtain copies of his divorce decree. Under Turkish law, all foreigners must provide proof they are single to marry Turkish nationals.

 

 

 

 

Hacking for a Living

Internet Hackers in 2017

First Documentary (2017)

Film Review

This documentary provides a general overview of black hat, white hat and gray hat hacking. A black hat hacker hacks into government and/or corporate IT systems for criminal or political gain. At the time of filming, black hats had worked out how to hack into and disrupt high speed trains, blast furnaces, computerized SUVs and baby monitors. A white hacker hacks into corporate IT systems and alerts them to potential security vulnerabilities in return for a “bounty.”*

The private security industry is a billion dollar industry. According to the filmmakers, the US Secret Service has primary responsibility for investigating cyber crimes that threaten the security of US “financial markets.” Meanwhile the US military trains up future soldiers in the art of cyberwarfare.

The last half of the film concerns the current culture of surveillance we presently live in. For the most part, citizens of the industrialized world have traded privacy for security and convenience. In addition to ubiquitous CCTV cameras in most urban centers, Smartphones track people wherever they go. Most users are aware that Google, Facebook and AT&T spy on them and collect (and sell) their personal data but don’t seem to care.

The documentary also raises the alarm regarding the extreme vulnerability of modern computerized infrastructure to both cyber attack and natural events, such as solar storms. Solar flares nearly shut down all computerized infrastructure in 2012, 2013 and 2014. One black hat hacker interviewed by filmmakers claims it would only take him an hour to bring down the whole Internet.

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*Sounds to me like a garden variety protection racket. I hate to think what happens to companies who refuse to pay the bounty.