Turki Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Jasser is believed to have been murdered in a Saudi jail last week, after being forcibly detained in March for his supposed connection to a Twitter count outlining numerous abuses committed by the Saudi royal family.
Prominent human rights activist Yahya Assiri commented previously on the case to The New Arab, saying: “Al-Jasser was forcibly disappeared, and we are following his case.”
Reports indicate al-Jasser may have been tortured and killed while in detention, but claims are yet to be confirmed.
Al-Jasser’s disappearance came after Saudi spies allegedly infiltrated Twitter’s headquarters in Dubai, and connected him to a Twitter account which monitored human rights abuses committed by the Saudi royal family.
The Twitter account, Kashkool or @calouche_ar, fell silent in 2016, the year crown prince Mohammad bin Salman became de facto ruler and launched a crack down on dissidents.
Saudi Arabia’s media surveillance network was reportedly founded by Saud al-Qahtani, a former close aide of the crown prince, according to the New York Times.
The newspaper reported that Qahtani was at the forefront of the online campaign against Qatar at the start of the blockade against the peninsula state, urging Saudis to report anyone displaying sympathetic views to the nation.
The former official posted a tweet in August 2017 which is believed to have been linked to the country’s clampdown on online dissidents.
It said: “Does you alias protect you from the blacklist? 1. States have ways of knowing the name of the account holder. 2. There are several technical ways to identify the IP address. 3. A secret I won’t tell.”
Mr Qahtani was later fired on October 20 over his alleged involvement in the murder of Mr Khashoggi.
He is believed to have authorised one of his senior staff to conduct the procedure of enforcing Mr Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia.
Mr Khashoggi reported in an article for the Washington Post earlier this year that Qahtani and other senior Saudi officials maintained a “blacklist” of supposed Saudi dissidents.
In the article published in February, he said: “Over the past 18 months, Mohammad bin Salman’s communications team within the royal court publicly has chastised, and worse, intimidated anyone who disagrees.
“Saud Al-Qahtani, leader of that unit, has a blacklist and calls for Saudis to add names to it.
“Writers like me, whose criticism is offered respectfully, seem to be considered more dangerous than the more strident Saudi opposition based in London.”
Mr Khashoggi also revealed in an off-record interview with Newsweek that Mohammad bin Salman was an “old-fashioned tribal leader” with “thuggish aides”.
He said: “Sometimes I feel that he wants to enjoy the fruits of first world modernity and Silicon Valley and cinemas and everything, but at the same time he wants also to rule like how his grandfather ruled Saudi Arabia.
“He is moving toward a Saudi Arabia according to him, a Saudi Arabia according to Mohammed bin Salman only.
“People fear them. You challenge them, you might end up in prison, and that has happened.”