BEIRUT • United Nations experts have broadened the inquiry into Saudi Arabia's efforts to squelch criticism, accusing its crown prince of personally hacking the cellphone of Mr Jeff Bezos, billionaire owner of The Washington Post, to "influence, if not silence" the paper's critical coverage of the kingdom.
The accusations by two prominent UN rights experts on Wednesday threatened to hamper efforts by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to shake off the stigma of the 2018 murder and dismemberment of a Washington Post columnist by Saudi agents in Istanbul.
The experts did not directly investigate the hack. But giving their imprimatur to an outside investigation bolstered criticism of the kingdom's covert efforts to silence critical voices and widened the possibilities of who could be targeted.
"The hacking of Jeff Bezos is in a different league," said Dr Agnes Callamard, one of the UN experts. "He is not a Saudi citizen. He is a person of strategic interest, and his hacking appears to have been driven by his ownership of The Washington Post."
According to a statement by the two experts, Mr Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, received an encrypted video from a WhatsApp account belonging to Crown Prince Mohammed that was loaded with digital spyware. By watching the video, Mr Bezos enabled surveillance of his cellphone starting in May 2018.
Dr Callamard said the surveillance was believed to have continued until last February.
During his rise, Crown Prince Mohammed, a son of the Saudi king, has pushed to open Saudi society by letting women drive and expanding entertainment opportunities. But he also has overseen a wide-ranging crackdown on dissidents at home and abroad.
In recent years, technology researchers and rights groups have documented cases of operators who appear to be working for Saudi Arabia infiltrating the communications devices of well-known Saudi dissidents and manipulating social media in the kingdom to amplify voices praising Crown Prince Mohammed and drown out his critics.
But targeting the cellphone of an American citizen who is one of the world's richest businessmen would be a clear escalation. The Saudi Embassy in Washington on Wednesday said the idea that the kingdom had hacked Mr Bezos' cellphone was "absurd", and did not respond to a request for comment about the hacking of Saudi dissidents.
The hacking of Mr Bezos is particularly sensitive because of his ownership of the Post, which had published coverage critical of the kingdom and had retained Mr Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi writer, as a regular columnist.
The late Mr Khashoggi had fled Saudi Arabia for the United States and often criticised Crown Prince Mohammed in his columns.
Six months after the hack of Mr Bezos' phone, Mr Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents in Istanbul, where he had gone to get papers for his marriage to his Turkish fiancee.
The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed most likely ordered the murder. He and other Saudi officials deny he played a role.
Last year, Mr Bezos accused American Media Inc, the tabloid publisher, of "extortion and blackmail" after it exposed his extramarital affair with Ms Lauren Sanchez and threatened to publish graphic photos of the two if he did not publicly state that reporting by The National Enquirer was not motivated by political concerns.
Mr Bezos suggested that the company had been doing the bidding of Saudi Arabia. The Enquirer's parent company has said Ms Sanchez's brother, Mr Michael Sanchez, was the sole source of the texts and intimate photos it acquired.
In their statement on Wednesday, the UN experts - Dr Callamard, special rapporteur on summary executions and extrajudicial killings, and Mr David Kaye, special rapporteur on freedom of expression - also accused Saudi Arabia of starting vast social media campaigns to tar the image of Mr Bezos after the killing of Mr Khashoggi.
Their assessment of the hack is based on a forensic investigation carried out at Mr Bezos' request.
Mr Bezos did not comment on the hack but posted a photo of himself on Twitter on Wednesday standing beside Mr Khashoggi's fiancee, Ms Hatice Cengiz, and with his hand resting on a stone bearing Mr Khashoggi's name. The caption read: "#Jamal." Saudi officials have not revealed the whereabouts of Mr Khashoggi's remains.
NYTIMES
