ISRAELI PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE FIRM CLAIMED RECRUITMENT OFKHASHOGGI PRIOR TO MURDER

BY SCOTT STEDMAN, ALEX HULVALCHICK, BOBBY DENAULT, ERIC LEVAI, XAVIER GONZALEZ JR, ADRIENNE COBB AND JESS COLEMAN ON OCTOBER 22, 2019

Wikistrat, a hybrid geopolitical analysis/intelligence gathering companyconnected to Saudi and Israeli leadership, claimed they “recruited” slain

Washington Post

 journalist Jamal Khashoggi shortly before his murder, andapproximately one year after the rm’s owner met with senior advisors to theSaudi government.Thousands of documents obtained exclusively by

Forensic New

s includecorrespondences between a senior leader of Wikistrat and a lower-levelemployee that took place in summer 2018 in which the senior leader wrote

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that Khashoggi had recently been “recruited” by the rm and encouraged theemployee to solicit similar journalists for an unspecied Wikistrat project.Khashoggi’s “recruitment” by Wikistrat occurred just one year after a smallgroup of businessmen, including Wikistrat owner Joel Zamel, met with senioradvisors to the Saudi government. According to the

 New York Times

report,the men allegedly discussed using private intelligence rms to assassinatepolitical enemies of the newly-minted Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad binSalman.While Zamel reportedly declined such offers, messages show his rmWikistrat later recruited Khashoggi for a condential project with unclearpurposes for an unknown client.Shortly after Khashoggi’s murder, the same Wikistrat senior leader who saidKhashoggi had been “recruited” by the rm weeks earlier explicitly denied thesame when pressed by employees.

Wikistrat

Wikistrat was founded in 2009 by Zamel, Daniel Green, and former Israelimilitary intelligence ofcer Elad Schaffer. Described as “crowd sourcedconsultancy”, Wikistrat hires experts who produce reports for clients, oftengovernment agencies and major corporations. Analysts run simulations, wargame scenarios, and risk-monitoring for a wide variety of internationalclientele.

 

Original incorporation documents for Wikistrat in Israel.

Zamel, originally born in Australia, moved to Israel to obtain a Master’s degreein Government at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. After entering theclandestine market of private intelligence, Zamel founded Wikistrat andanother private intelligence rm, Psy Group, both in Israel. Psy Group had aconvoluted corporate structure which ran through Cyprus and ended up inthe British Virgin Islands, obscuring true ownership of the company.Psy Group achieved some level of notoriety for being investigated by SpecialCounsel Robert Mueller. Mueller was reportedly probing a plan pitched by therm which was designed to assist the Trump 2016 presidential campaign withsocial media manipulation. The plan would allegedly be bankrolled by Saudiand UAE leaders. Zamel and both rms, Wikistrat and Psy Group, have alsobeen the target of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan investigationinto 2016 election interference.

Khashoggi

 Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi Arabian author and outspoken dissident of Saudigovernment oppression. In 2017, he relocated to the United States due toincreasing fear for his safety. Khashoggi’s concerns proved prescient, asshortly after his departure bin Salman’s government began implementing asevere crackdown on opposition speech and organization. After arriving in theUnited States, Khashoggi served as a contributor to the

Washington Post

,