US cites journalist murder as a rights abuse by Saudi Arabia

The Trump administration used an annual report on human rights abuses to call out close partner Saudi Arabia on Wednesday over the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year.

The State Department annual global human rights report said The Washington Post columnist was killed by agents of the kingdom while he was inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. But it drew no conclusion as to who was responsible, despite the belief of intelligence agencies and lawmakers that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder. The report noted Saudi Arabia's Public Prosecutor's Office has indicted 11 suspects and said 10 people were under investigation but has not released more information.

"At year's end the PPO had not named the suspects nor the roles allegedly played by them in the killing, nor had they provided a detailed explanation of the direction and progress of the investigation," it said. The report added that the murder was one of several cases in which "the government or its agents engaged in arbitrary or unlawful killings,"

Michael Kozak, ambassador for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor speaks during the release of the 2018 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices at the Department of State in Washington, Wednesday, March 13, 2019. (AP PhotoJose Luis Magana)

The report said a range of other human rights abuses have taken place in Saudi Arabia, including the arrest of at least 20 prominent women's rights activists, executions for nonviolent offenses, forced disappearances and torture of prisoners. It also highlighted issues related to the Saudi military operation in Yemen, saying that airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting Iranian-backed rebels "resulted in civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure on a number of occasions."

It also notes some gains in the monarchy, including that women were allowed to vote and run as candidates in municipal elections for the first time.

Khashoggi had been living in Virginia in self-imposed exile as he wrote columns critical of the Saudi government under the crown prince, the de factor leader.

His killing in October caused tensions to soar between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, with members of Congress saying they believed the crown prince was behind the operation, an allegation the Saudi government has denied. President Donald Trump has been reluctant to place blame on a country that is central to his Middle East policy strategy.

In presenting the report, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. "will expose violations of human rights wherever they occur." He did not mention Saudi Arabia in his remarks, but he also made clear that the Trump administration will deal with foreign countries no matter how poor their rights record to advance national interests.

"The policy of this administration is to engage with other governments, regardless of their record, if doing so will further U.S. interests," Pompeo said, in an apparent effort to limit criticism of Trump's outreach to serial rights abuser North Korea.

In addition to Saudi Arabia, the report pointed out abuses committed by NATO ally Turkey.

Turkey arbitrarily arrested tens of thousands of lawmakers, lawyers and journalists for alleged terrorism ties or legitimate speech and did not look thoroughly into abuse allegations. "The government continued to take limited steps to investigate, prosecute, and punish members of the security forces and other officials accused of human rights abuses; impunity for such abuses remained a problem," the report said.

Human rights groups lambasted the report as inadequate even with Pompeo's qualification that the administration must work to promote U.S. national interests.

"From its shielding of Saudi leaders from accountability over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, to its cozy relationship with NATO allies trending towards authoritarianism, the Trump administration seems disinterested in its own advice," said Human Rights First. "With respect to the Khashoggi killing, the administration's continued insistence that it is waiting on a Saudi-led investigation is laughable, given the complete absence of rule of law in that country."

The report notes abuses in a number of familiar U.S. adversaries like China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar and Russia, all of which were cited for major violations, including forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary killings and arrests and political prosecutions.

Pompeo said China "is in a league of its own when it comes to human rights abuses," citing mass detentions of hundreds of thousands of Muslims and ethnic Kazakhs as well as repression of Tibetans, Christians and other religious minorities.

In Burma, the report said evidence had surfaced to support allegations that the military carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in 2017 and it accused the government of preventing humanitarian assistance from reaching those displaced.

In Iran, the report said "the government's human rights record remained extremely poor and worsened in several key areas." Those included executions for crimes without fair trials and forced disappearances.

Russia was cited for abuses in Ukraine, as well as authoritarian moves against opposition figures.

Closer to home, the report identified widespread abuses in Cuba and Venezuela.

"Government officials, at the direction of their superiors, committed most human rights abuses and failed to investigate or prosecute those who committed the abuses," the report for Cuba said. "Impunity for the perpetrators remained widespread."

In Venezuela, where the administration no longer recognizes President Nicolas Maduro as the country's legitimate leader, the report said abuses included extrajudicial killings by security forces, torture, harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, restrictions on free expression and the press, sham elections, pervasive corruption and impunity, trafficking in persons and child labor. "The government took no effective action to investigate officials who committed human rights abuses, and there was impunity for such abuses," it said.

HONOLULU (AP) — Crews on Tuesday began evaluating damage from a surprise downpour that sent floodwaters raging through a neighborhood near downtown Honolulu — the latest bout in a series of storms and flooding that have pummeled the state over the past two weeks.

Residents along Oahu's North Shore, famous for its big wave surfing, were cleaning up from the worst flooding to hit Hawaii in two decades when a storm Monday unleashed several inches of rain on the southern part of the island. Reddish-brown torrents gushed along roads in the Manoa Valley, a few miles east of downtown Honolulu, sweeping away parked cars and swamping much of the neighborhood.

“I was shocked to see how much flash flooding there was in my area,” said resident Andrew Phomsouvanh, who recorded video of streets transformed into a confluence of rapids. “The water just keeps coming.”

Natalie Aczon had gone to the drugstore to pick up some medication for her mother on Monday. By the time she left the store some 15 minutes later, water was roaring down the street next to the shopping center.

“People came running out from Longs and one of the guys actually said, ‘That’s my white car.’ And it had elevated,” she said.

The ferocity of Monday's downpour even took National Weather Service meteorologists aback. They knew that lingering instability from a powerful winter storm system called a “Kona low” could yield more rain, but their models aren't good at predicting how much moisture can remain in such systems, said forecaster Cole Evans.

“When you think it's over it's not quite over,” he said Tuesday.

The downpour, which dumped 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) of rain per hour, was highly localized: One rain gauge in the upper part of the valley recorded 6 inches (15 centimeters), while the airport a few miles away got just one-hundredth of an inch (less than a millimeter).

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi called it a “classic rain bomb,” and he said that earlier in the day, the skies were sunny.

“We had no warning,” he said Tuesday as he toured the damage.

The Kona low was moving off to the east, Evans said, and it should not pose further risk of bursts like Monday's burst. Flood watches were in effect for parts of Maui and the Big Island.

There were no immediate reports of deaths or serious injuries, but authorities said hundreds of homes on Oahu's North Shore had been damaged by last week's flooding, which came as heavy rains fell on soil already saturated by downpours from a winter storm a week earlier.

More than 230 people had to be rescued. The water pushed houses off their foundations, floated cars out of parking spots and left walls, floor and counters covered with thick, reddish volcanic mud.

Evacuation orders covered 5,500 people north of Honolulu, and some residents fled on surfboards as water reached waist or chest high.

Farms around the state reported more than $9.4 million worth of damage as of Monday, according to a survey conducted by Agriculture Stewardship Hawaii, the Hawaii Farm Bureau and other organizations.

Even before Monday, Gov. Josh Green said the cost of the storm could top $1 billion, including damage to airports, schools, roads, homes and a Maui hospital in Kula. He called it the state’s most serious since flooding since 2004, when floods in Manoa inundated homes and a University of Hawaii library.

Green's office said Tuesday he had submitted a major disaster declaration request to the Trump administration.

Molly Pierce, a spokesperson for the Oahu Emergency Management Agency, said that in addition to volunteers and public workers who have been cleaning up, a contract company had arrived to begin collecting, sorting and removing large piles of debris.

She called the storm system “extremely unusual” but that officials were cautiously optimistic Tuesday that the rains are finally ending.

“Most of us have not seen something that just keeps going like this,” Pierce said. “We feel like we keep getting punched down. But we'll keep getting back up.”

The intensity and frequency of heavy rains in Hawaii have increased amid human-caused global warming, experts say.

Johnson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in San Diego contributed to this report.

Excavators place debris onto trucks at a roundabout turned debris triage point by residents after the flood in Waialua, Hawaii Monday, March 23, 2026. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)