Life is very frail, death very final and murder often a simple crime to commit. Which is perhaps why such fearful crime fascinates us all. The foulest of murders are the premeditated ones, inspired by greed, envy or hatred and those which are sadistic product of a twisted mind. No one can hope to explain the savage slaughters of Jack the Ripper or the callous cold-blooded murders committed by George Smith, the lethal romeo- no one will forget these most evil of murders (CROOKS, CRIME AND CORRUPTION).
It is said that one of the reasons why crime holds a high degree of fascination and sometimes awe for everyone is simply the fact that most of us as humans are quite capable of committing one kind of serious crime or a serious misdeed or the other ourselves. Majority of the people will not commit a crime of such serious proportions as described above because of innate good sense and in some instances prevention by civilized behaviour which stops them from crossing over the line to have a brush with the law. The fear of punishment is also a restraining factor to most sensible people who would not want to damage their reputation.
These account for the fact that generally majority of the people, no matter where they may be and what their social and economic circumstances are, would restrain themselves from committing any form of crime. Sadly, there are and will forever be a number of people, for various reasons, would not be able to restrain themselves from committing petty, malicious and even heinous crimes ranging from theft to cold-blooded murders.
As some also said ‘like it or not, the crooks of this world are always more intriguing characters than the law-abiding citizens. It is their names and deeds that are remembered through the ages’.
Recent events, just a month ago, which by all intents and purposes can be described as a state sponsored premeditated murder, has frozen the blood of many right thinking people all over the world. The callous strangling, murder and dismembering of a Saudi national and a journalist, Jamal Kashoggi in the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Turkey is ‘murder so foul’.
When Kashoggi entered the Embassy, leaving his fiancé behind, was a guest of the Saudi Embassy and as a Saudi national at the same time. Murder of Kashoggi can only be related in history to the murder of King Duncan by Macbeth who was the host of King Duncan. Macbeth in his denial had said: “Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant, there is nothing serious in mortality; all is but toys; renown, and grace, is dead; the wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees is left this vault to brag of”.
When ‘confusion broke open’ in the Saudi Consulate, after the gruesome murder of Kashoggi, lies to cover up were told the world. First, he left the Consulate through a back door. When the CCTV cameras exposed the lies and the attempt to hoodwink the world failed, a new lie was told and that was Kashoggi died in a struggle with some staff of the Embassy and on and on and on new lies were told until the admission of his murder.
Many such murders have happened in the world and perhaps continue to happen by individuals for whatever reason. Groups engage in these gruesome, horrifying murders of individuals or even a whole family sometimes for revenge, unacceptable though they are, the case of Jamal Kashoggi is gradually pointing to state-sponsored murder of unarmed defenceless journalist whose only crime to his country was calling for social reforms; I do not know if he had called for political reforms as well.
Even if he had called for political reforms in his country, in the 21st Century, would such heinous butchery in a facility of the Saudi Arabian state be the punishment for his views? It has been established at least by the Turkish government that special squad had flown in private jets to Istanbul on the knowledge that Kashoggi was to honour an appointment with the Embassy. This obviously is a state sponsored cold blooded murder. And the man suspected to be behind this is the Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salam.
The Crown Prince is regarded as the de facto ruler of the Saudi Kingdom because his father has aged and perhaps too frail to engage in the turbulent day-to-day activity of governing a wealthy and influential nation of the status of the Kingdom of Saudi. He was initially seen as a moderate young man ready to relax the muscles of governance in his country and offer the people more reasonable freedoms and liberties.
He triggered the relaxation of the laws that banned women from driving and for the first time in the Kingdom, women had the liberty to drive cars just like most if not all women the world over. Perhaps he might have introduced other reforms for the benefit of his people in the Kingdom I may not know.
These are welcomed but besides that some of his decisions towards other nations and some individuals present him as an intolerant individual who would want to use the wealth of his nation to suppress those nations he disagrees with. With his influence, he got some other nations in the Gulf to severe relations with Qatar to the point that the citizens of that country were at a point in time denied entry into Saudi to honour their religious obligations to their maker.
The Crown Prince went further to kidnap the Prime Minister of Lebanon Mr. Hariri, who was allegedly beaten and forced to resign as the Prime of his country. The world watched without admonishing him, particularly his allies in the Western world kept quiet over some of these. Yemen is believed to be a haven for terrorist activities all over the world. That country first came to my radar in 2000 when it sponsored some terrorist to attack a US Naval Ship, the USS Cole. Obviously Americans were mad.
However, the Saudi massacre of children in school buses in Yemen cannot be accepted by any right-thinking person anywhere in the world. Wedding ceremonies in Yemen have suffered the deadly arsenals of the Kingdom. The blockade which has denied the innocent civilians, women and children, basic medications and food, can only come from a sadist inspired by the knowledge that people suffer to their untimely death. What is worse, even as the people mourn and bury their dead, they are bombed and killed too – nothing short of callousness on the part of the Crown Prince.
There are reports of women activists calling for more freedoms and respects having been beaten and jailed in some cases by the Crown Prince. This is a dangerous person to modern society. Sadly, because the Kingdom has excess funds which its allies want pies of, many of them, particularly the U.S.A, seem to be massaging even the premeditated murder of Kashoggi even though high officials of the Kingdom have admitted to the murder.
It is refreshing to know that Germany, France and lately Switzerland have embarked upon some limited sanctions of arms embargo on the Kingdom. Lies were repeated from the Kingdom even when the evidence was so clear about the criminal conducts of the Crown Prince of the Kingdom within and outside of the Kingdom.
The world has had enough of such dangerous characters like the Crown Prince who attempted to annihilate a whole race, others have unjustifiably murdered their own people and history is still fighting to put it behind. We cannot tolerate another blood-thirsty ruler as portrayed by the Crown Prince. The world must wake up, no matter how poor nations might be.
Three tots of mahogany bitters.
Kb2014gh@gmail.com
By Kwesi Biney