Saud al-Qahtani

Saud bin Abdullah al-Qahtani was an adviser to the Royal Court of Saudi Arabia and media adviser to Mohammed bin Salman until October 2018. In 2018 he was also named as chairman of the board of the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones.¹²

Royal Court Service

Al Jazeera reported on October 20, 2018 that Qahtani, a law graduate, had served as media adviser to the crown prince after several positions within the royal court. It wrote that he first worked as a legal adviser to the team of Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in 2003, when Abdullah was crown prince, then as an adviser to the deputy chief of the royal court, and from 2012 as an adviser to the court.¹

#TheBlacklist and the Social Media Campaigns

In 2017, during the diplomatic rupture with Qatar, Qahtani launched the hashtag #TheBlacklist, urging Saudis to add names of Qatar sympathizers to the list.¹ The UN report on the killing of Khashoggi quotes his posts of August 17 and 18, 2017, including "They will be sorted. They will be followed up on from now" and "Does a pseudonym protect you from #the_black_list? No 1) States have a method to learn the owner of the pseudonym 2) the IP address can be learned using a number of methods 3) a secret I will not say."³ The same report states that "There is credible evidence that he personally directed a campaign targeting activists and political opponents."³ The report also quotes a post of August 17, 2017: "I am a trustworthy employee who carries out the orders of my boss the king and my boss the crown prince."³ Al Jazeera wrote that Qahtani "has also been accused of using bot networks against political opponents and push government propaganda."¹

Twitter Operations and Platform Disclosures

The New York Times reported on October 20, 2018 that Qahtani "was the strategist behind the operation" of a Saudi troll farm on Twitter, according to United States and Saudi officials and activist organizations. The article says the specialists recruited into the operation "heard directors speak often of Mr. Qahtani," records the labels "troll master," "Saudi Arabia's Steve Bannon" and "lord of the flies" applied to him by activists and writers, and states that neither Saudi officials nor Qahtani responded to requests for comment.⁴ Reuters wrote in January 2019 that as head of the royal court's media center he "ran an electronic media army tasked with protecting Saudi Arabia's image."⁵

On September 20, 2019 Twitter permanently suspended Qahtani's account for violations of its platform manipulation policies, and said it would not add his tweets to its archive of state-backed information operations. Al Jazeera noted that he had not tweeted since October 22, 2018.⁶ On December 20, 2019 Twitter published data on 5,929 accounts it had removed as a "significant state-backed information operation on Twitter originating in Saudi Arabia," the core of a network of more than 88,000 accounts. Its blog traced the activity to Smaat, "a social media marketing and management company based in Saudi Arabia," which it said appeared to have created, purchased or managed the accounts "on behalf of, but not necessarily with the knowledge of, their clients," and which it said managed accounts for high-profile individuals and many Saudi government departments.⁷ Al Jazeera's report of the December disclosure recalled the September suspension of Qahtani, "who also served as director of the cybersecurity federation."⁸

Federation Chairmanship

On April 15, 2018, Arab News reported a memorandum of understanding between the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones and STC and identified the federation's chairman as "Adviser at the Royal Court, chairman of the board of directors, SAFCSP, Saud bin Abdullah Al-Qahtani."² On August 2, 2018 Arab News quoted him as "Royal Court advisor and head of the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security, Programming and Drones" when announcing the Hajj hackathon record.⁹

Dismissal, October 2018

On October 20, 2018 Saudi state media reported that Qahtani had been fired as royal court adviser. The same announcement said that King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud had ordered the restructuring of the command of the General Intelligence Presidency under the supervision of the crown prince.¹ Arabic-language outlets published a royal order relieving Qahtani, adviser to the royal court, and Ahmed Asiri, deputy of general intelligence, from their posts, along with Qahtani's post thanking the king.¹⁰¹¹

Bloomberg reported on October 24, 2018, a week after the dismissal, under the headline "Fired Saudi Royal Court Adviser Drops All Titles in Twitter Bio."¹² On the day of the dismissal Qahtani had written on Twitter that he was grateful to the Saudi government for "the great opportunity they gave me to serve my country all those years" and would "remain a loyal servant to my country for all times."¹

The UN report states that "According to some media reports, despite his dismissal from the Royal Court, Mr. Alqahtani continues to advise the Crown Prince."¹³

Prosecution Decision and Later Reports

Reuters reported on January 16, 2019 that six sources said Qahtani "remains active on behalf of the royal court": two said he had kept in touch with the crown prince and three others said he continued to instruct a small group of Saudi journalists on what to write. A senior Saudi official had described his removal as "a political decision."⁵ On March 24, 2019 Reuters wrote, citing seven sources familiar with the proceedings, that Qahtani was not on trial and had not appeared at any of the four court sessions held since January. It added that two regional intelligence sources said he had overseen the Khashoggi operation by giving orders over Skype.¹⁴

On December 23, 2019, after the closed Riyadh trial, the Saudi public prosecution said that Qahtani "was investigated but not indicted 'due to insufficient evidence,'" and that Ahmed Asiri was charged and acquitted on the same grounds, according to Al Jazeera's report of the statement by the prosecution spokesman Shalaan al-Shalaan. Of the 11 individuals indicted, five were sentenced to death and three to prison terms totalling 24 years.¹⁵

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an assessment, dated February 11, 2021, listing Qahtani among the individuals it assessed with high confidence "participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi on behalf of Muhammad bin Salman." The assessment states that the royal court's Center for Studies and Media Affairs was led by Qahtani at the time of the operation, and that he "claimed publicly in mid-2018 that he did not make decisions without the Crown Prince's approval."¹⁶

The German news agency dpa reported on June 18, 2023 that videos showing Qahtani received by hosts had circulated on social media that day, which observers saw as his first public appearance since the killing. It wrote that unconfirmed reports placed him visiting an uncle in Jeddah and that it was unclear when the videos were recorded.¹⁷

Khashoggi Killing

The United States Department of the Treasury designated Qahtani on November 15, 2018 under Executive Order 13818, which implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The release describes him as "a senior official of the Government of Saudi Arabia who was part of the planning and execution of the operation that led to the killing of Mr. Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, 2018."¹⁸

The UN report by Agnes Callamard (A/HRC/41/CRP.1, June 19, 2019) reports that "According to the Saudi Prosecutor statement of November 15, 2018, Saud Alqahtani was one of the senior officials directly involved in the mission."¹³ It records that Maher Mutreb, the alleged head of the team that negotiated with Jamal Khashoggi, "was himself an employee of Saad al-Qahtani, according to the Saudi Prosecutor."¹³ The report's wording on his dismissal is "The firing of Saud Alqahtani reflects some acknowledgement by the Government of Saudi Arabia of his involvement and responsibility. His criminal responsibility should be investigated further."¹³

The same report addresses "the question of credible evidence warranting further investigation of high-level officials currently not being criminally charged, specifically Saud Alqahtani, and the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman." It adds: "No conclusion is made as to guilt."¹³

The UN report also describes a forensic review of a phone belonging to Qahtani, commissioned by the Saudi Public Prosecutor from the Kroll security firm and focused on WhatsApp messages between Mohammed bin Salman and Qahtani on October 2 and 3, 2018. According to the Wall Street Journal, which saw a draft of the Kroll report, one message had been deleted from Qahtani's phone. The Saudi Public Prosecutor told Kroll that Qahtani had sent a message containing a typographical error, deleted it and then sent a corrected one.¹³

Ritz-Carlton Detentions and Saad Hariri, November 2017

From November 4, 2017 hundreds of Saudi princes, businessmen and officials were held at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh. NBC News quoted the Canadian businessman Alan Bender, who said he was flown to Riyadh to give video testimony against a detainee, as saying that Qahtani, "a top adviser to the crown prince," "bragged to me that they slapped and hung some detainees upside down." NBC wrote that Saudi authorities denied that any abuse or torture took place.¹⁹

The UN report states that the Special Rapporteur "was informed that he was one of two officials who personally interrogated and threatened Prime Minister Saad Hariri of Lebanon, during his detention in a private residence on the compound of the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh, in November 2017, to force him to resign." It adds that people close to the incident described the treatment as "psychological torture."¹³

Other Allegations in the UN Report

The report states that "Two have allegedly stated that Saud Alqahtani was physically present during their torture" (six women activists reported torture in prison). It quotes an official February 2019 communication from Special Procedures to Saudi Arabia in which Qahtani is reported to have told one of the women: "I'll do whatever I like to you, and then I'll dissolve you and flush you down the toilet."¹³

Foreign Lobbying Filings

Middle East Eye reported on September 24, 2021 that Squire Patton Boggs began work in September 2016 for the Center for Studies and Media Affairs, "run by Saudi royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani," on a contract of $100,000 a month, according to foreign lobbying filings. The firm later ended the representation.²⁰

Hacking Team Correspondence, 2015

WikiLeaks publishes two messages dated June 30, 2015 in the Hacking Team archive, document IDs 1134550 (08:46:49) and 1134640 (08:59:51), both with the subject "R: R: Requist." Each is sent from Hacking Team's key account manager, Emad Shehata, to an "s. qahtani" address at royalcourt.gov.sa, and the Arabic text of each names "سعود عبدالله القحطاني" (Saud Abdullah al-Qahtani). The first says "I need the attached one, as per my one"; the second says "I got your key, now you need to download my key" and asks whether there is a problem with the attachment.²¹

Bezos Phone Analysis, 2020

A summary of the analysis of Jeff Bezos's iPhone by FTI Consulting, reprinted on the website of Senator Chris Murphy, states that the analysis found the device "had been compromised by cybersecurity tools linked to Saud al Qahtani, a close friend of bin Salman and the former president and chairman of the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones."²² The UN statement of January 22, 2020, reported by CNBC, said FTI reported "with medium to high confidence" that the phone was compromised by malware sent from a WhatsApp account used by Mohammed bin Salman.²³ CNBC wrote that Pegasus, the spyware made by NSO Group, "has been widely reported as having been purchased by Saudi officials including Saud al-Qahtani, Prince Mohammed's former advisor who was implicated in the Khashoggi murder but ultimately not charged by the Saudi authorities."²³