The Saudi Arabian regime has killed another journalist who had exposed human rights violations in the country, according to the latest reports on Arab media.
The revelation that journalist Turki bin Abdulaziz al-Jasser was tortured to death in detention comes a month after the brutal killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi put the Saudi royals on the back foot.
Al-Jasser was bumped off in prison after Saudi intelligence came to the conclusion that he had administered the Twitter account Kashkool, which had exposed human rights violations perpetrated by the top members of the royal family, the Middle East Monitor reported, citing Arab media.
Al-Jasser was arrested in March in Dubai, after the 'Saudi Cyber Army' agents deployed by Saud Al-Qahtani, the former aide of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, found purported evidence against him.
Before his arrest, Al-Qahtani, who was sacked following the widely deplored killing of Khashoggi, had warned Saudi dissidents that those hiding behind fake names on Twitter would meet punishment.
Al-Jasser had been forcibly taken by Saudi authorities in March, prominent human rights activist Yahya Assiri told The New Arab. Assiri, Saudi dissident and the founder of the ALQST human rights organisation, lives in the UK after he secured political asylum there.
The Twitter account Kashkool or @calouche_ar, had made its last post in 2016, when Mohammed bin Salman grabbed real power in the kingdom.
Qahtani, who built up a formidable cyber army that identified dissident voices across the world and acted ruthlessly to snuff out all anti-establishment voices, became the fall guy after Turkey asserted that the Khashoggi killing was ordered by the highest echelons of the Saudi order.
Khashoggi disappeared after he entered the consulate on October 2 even as his fiancée Hatice Cengiz waited outside the building. Within days of the mysterious disappearance Turkish officials had made anonymous leaks to the media about the killing of the journalist, a harsh critic of Saudi Crown Prince MBS.
Last week, Turkey's chief prosecutor said Khashoggi was strangled to death as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and that his body was then dismembered.
The international uproar over the murder shook Riyadh, which had initially sought to dismiss it as an immaterial incident. But it was forced to first admit that the death was an accident, then say that rogue elements eliminated the dissident journalist. Riyadh changed its position several times, but finally offered a full probe, removed al-Qahtani, and arrested 15 agents. However, Saudi Arabia has not revealed how it disposed off Khashoggi's body.
