Thread by @mollymotoole

Least surprising conclusion, but still shocking: Biden admin expected to release Thursday* declassified US intel report finding that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi @Reuters citing 4 officials reut.rs/37HBSvW

@Reuters With this news, a brief thread on a generous colleague - In a twist of fate, I interviewed Khashoggi from Morocco in 2017 (he'd recently gone into exile in VA) for stories on Saudi's 'deradicalization' program and migrant workers -& he said he'd recently spoken to MBS on labor 1/

Privately to potential investors, Khashoggi said “[MBS] sees the position of Saudi Arabia—near the subcontinent, close to cheap foreign labor—as a competitive advantage” — a contradiction with his much-touted 'Vision 2030' meant to modernize economy & wean it off foreign labor 2/

“If Nepali workers demonstrate and burn tires, Saudi Arabia will deport them,” Khashoggi told me. “When the Saudis do that, what is our government going to do? Those millions of young Saudis who want jobs, eventually they might go on the streets.” 3/

I mentioned I’d been struggling to get a visa to report in Saudi, and he gave me an official's name, adding: Don’t tell them it came from me. Shortly after, I was told my visa had been approved. 4/

A year later, I was in Istanbul, Turkey, on a stopover reporting on the Turkey-Syria border with @Jodi_Hilton & staying with @pkenyonnpr when I was shocked, like much of the world, to learn Khashoggi had disappeared in the Saudi Consulate there. 5/

While I knew from my reporting and others that the Saudi authorities were capable of many terrible things, it never crossed my mind - then - they'd be brazen enough to kill him, a prominent writer and @washingtonpost columnist. I was wrong. 6/

This was one of the stories I was working on, that Jamal Khashoggi helped make happen, published in October @latimes latimes.com/world-nation/s… and the back story here - latimes.com/world-nation/s… 7/

May we all be as kind and generous with our time and knowledge with colleagues and strangers, and as brave. END