JUDY WOODRUFF: Today,
two United Nations
investigators unveiled an
extraordinary charge: that the

powerful crown prince of Saudi
Arabia was possibly personally
involved in the hacking

of one of the world's
richest men and the owner
of The Washington Post.

Nick Schifrin is
back with that story.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Judy, here's
the story the U.N. allege.

In May 2018, Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman met
Washington Post owner and Amazon

founder Jeff Bezos, and
started messaging Bezos on the
phone application WhatsApp.

Salman sent Bezos an MP4 video
that contained software allowing
Bezos' phoned to be hacked.

Hours later, the phone started
uploading all of Bezos'
private data and messages.

Five months later, Saudi
agents murdered Washington
Post columnist Jamal
Khashoggi. When The Post

started investigating, Salman
once again sent Bezos messages,
this time about Bezos' affair

that hadn't yet gone public.
Bezos described it as
-- quote -- "blackmail."

And, today, the U.N.
described it as Salman's
likely personal attempt
to -- quote -- "influence,

if not silence" The
Washington Post.

One of the investigators
is the U.N. special
rapporteur on summary
executions and extrajudicial

killings, Agnes Callamard,
and she joins me now.

Welcome back to "NewsHour."
Thank you very much.

Why do you believe that
Mohammed bin Salman
would likely personally
be involved with this?

AGNES CALLAMARD, U.N. Special
Rapporteur: Well, that's
what the evidence is pointing

to.

The forensic investigation
conducted by the FTI consultancy
firm and backed up by four

independent cybersecurity
experts that we
contacted reached a
similar conclusion. The

likelihood that the hacking
originated from the WhatsApp
account of -- owned by Mohammed

bin Salman is very high,
and it is, in fact,
the only hypothesis
that could explain the

hacking.

So our conclusion was reinforced
through the very robust process
that we undertook in order

to check the conclusion by the
initial foreign expert. And that
led us today to release this

information to inform
the public, but also
to send a warning to
ensure that the wakeup

call is being made that we
are working, confronting,
facing a technology that
we are not controlling.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I want to get
to that technology a little bit
later, but I do need to read

you what the Saudi
government has said.

As you have seen, the Saudi
official told us the kingdom
rejected your conclusions and

that -- quote -- "Saudi
Arabia doesn't conduct
illicit activities."

And here's what the Saudi
Foreign Minister Prince Faisal
bin Farhan had to say earlier:

FAISAL BIN FARHAN AL SAUD, Saudi
Foreign Minister: The idea that
the conference would hack Jeff

Bezos' phone is
absolutely silly.

And my understanding of the
U.N. report, it's not actually
a report. It's a statement based

on a report by a private
company that has not been
vetted by an independent agency,

and that, in its own
conclusions, no hard
evidence to substantiate
the claims it's making.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So do you
have hard evidence to
substantiate the claims?

AGNES CALLAMARD: Absolutely.

First of all, the FTI
consultancy firm is
composed of some of the
best experts. It was

vetted, because investigation
into Mr. Bezos' phone is part
of an ongoing FBI investigation.

Therefore, the work by
the team and the team
was vetted by the FBI.

I have already described to you
the process that we followed
to check the information

and the conclusion of the FTI.

I should add that, because the
FTI review to have the phone
was part of an investigation,

it was conducted under the most
stringent conditions, including
with regard to the chain

of evidence.

I have very -- I have no doubt
that FTI and our independent
expert looked at, considered

all the options before concluded
that the hacking originated
from the WhatsApp account

owned by the crown prince.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So let's
talk about the context
for this a little bit.

You write that this is part of
a broader crackdown launched by
the kingdom against its critics.

We have certainly
interviewed people in this
country also who described
some of that crackdown.

But the kingdom itself
says Khashoggi's murder
was done by rogue actors,
that they're punishing

those people, and that
this won't happen again.

Do you acknowledge
those Saudi steps?

AGNES CALLAMARD: No, I don't.

As I -- when I noted in the
report I produced in June, this
-- the king of the killing of

Jamal Khashoggi was a violation
of international law. First of
all, it's not a domestic matter.

Second of all, a range
of international legal
standards were violated,
none of which have

been taken care of through
the Saudi investigation.

Thirdly, and most importantly,
the Saudi investigation
completely failed to
tackle the issue of the

mastermind behind the
killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
They only focused on the
hit men. And, indeed,

even though they had originally
charged some of the people that
were higher up in the chain

of command, they ended up not
finding them guilty of anything.

So, all in all, the
investigation and the
prosecution by the
Saudi authorities failed

to meet international
standards and certainly
didn't deliver justice.

The killing of a journalist
uncovers usually a
web of corruption, a
web of lies, and that

can go all the way to the
highest level of a government.

It is not unique to the case
of Jamal Khashoggi, but it is
a pattern that we found in many

other killings. This web of
corruption, of lies have not
been untangled through the Saudi

investigation.

And this is why I'm calling
for -- you know, the allegation
that we have released today,

one more element demonstrating
the centrality of the state of
Saudi Arabia, the centrality

of the crown prince of Saudi
Arabia in the campaign -- and
it is this campaign against

dissident that ultimately
resulted into the killing
of Jamal Khashoggi.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I only have about
45 seconds left, so I do want
to get back to the technology

that you mentioned at the top.

AGNES CALLAMARD: Yes.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In your statement
today, you call for a moratorium
on the global sale and

transfer of private
surveillance technology.

But it seems to me that we have
already crossed that Rubicon.
Is there really anything we

can do to try to rein in
this kind of technology?

AGNES CALLAMARD: Well, we --
we don't have a choice. We
have to rein it in, in the same

way we have tried and sometimes
succeeded in reining it --
some of the weapons that

were found to be
unlawful and illegal.

Look, this technology is
extremely difficult to trace,
almost impossible to control. We

have here an example of the
richest man on Earth, with
unlimited resources, and yet it

took him several months to
realize his phone was hacked,
and it took three months of work

by top-notch expert to uncover
the source of the hacking.

So this technology is a danger
to all. It's a danger to
national security and democratic

processes in the United States.
It targeted through Jeff
Bezos' First Amendment, and,

therefore, the
American Constitution.

It targeted a central economic
actor in the American system.
Therefore, we have no choice.

We need to control that
technology. We must
impose a moratorium.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Agnes Callamard,
U.N. special rapporteur,
thank you very much.

AGNES CALLAMARD:
Thank you very much.