Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), founded by the late Jamal Khashoggi and his fiancé, Hatice Cengiz, said it has used WhatsApp? and other means to successfully serve Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and others with a complaint over Khashoggi's murder.

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They filed in a D.C. Federal District Court in October 2020. The suit alleges that "MBS and other Saudi officials 'acting in a conspiracy and with premeditation, kidnapped, bound, drugged and tortured, and assassinated U.S.-resident journalist and democracy advocate Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey,' and that the murder caused plaintiffs grievous injury and harm."

Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime in opinion pieces in the Washington Post, was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2018.

They are seeking relief under the Alien Torte claims Act and Torture Victim Protection Act for an extrajudicial killing that caused the pain and suffering to Cengiz.

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Judge John Bates earlier this month approved their proposed method of serving the complaint, which was a combination of "WhatsApp messaging, express mail to the Saudi General Prison Directorate for various defendants currently imprisoned in Saudi prisons, publication in the New York Times International Edition and Al-Quds Al-Araby, and notice to MBS’s lawyers of record on two other litigations he faces in the United States."

Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Patrick Leahy (Vt.) have introduced a bill, named in honor of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, to ensure that governments are held accountable for human rights abuses committed against journalists.

The bill is supported by Reporters Without Borders; PEN America; Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), Freedom House and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

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While the bill would help secure justice for electronic and print journalists generally, it has a specific target--the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a resident of the United States who was working for the Washington Post when he was murdered at the direction of the Saudis due to his writings critical of the government. 

The Jamal Khashoggi Press Freedom Accountability Act would "include targeted sanctions, restrict foreign aid, and increase reporting on human rights abuses committed against journalists by foreign governments."

The Trump Administration has drawn criticism from the journalism community for not taking such steps to sanction the Saudi government and for defending the crown prince, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, even after his own CIA concluded that the prince had ordered the killing.

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“This legislation, named in honor of the late Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, would build upon the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act to strengthen the United States’ commitment to hold to account those who would target journalists for violence and persecution,” said bill supporter Rep. Adam Schiff. 

Pearl was the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in 2002 while covering Islamic extremists in Pakistan. He had once covered the media beat in Washington so was well known in communications journalism circles.

Time magazine has named journalists on the front lines of the "war on truth" as its "Person of the Year, it was revealed on NBC's Today show.

Representing those guardians were slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Maria Ressa of a Philippine web site critical of the government, arrested Reuters reporters (in Myanmar) Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Md., which was the target of a mass shooting.

“They are representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world — as of Dec. 10, at least 52 journalists have been murdered in 2018 — who risk all to tell the story of our time,” Time Editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote of the selection.

NBC said it was the first time that someone who is dead was named one of Time's people of the year. Ironically, President Donald Trump, who has called journalists the enemy was runner up. The "person of the year" is not an accolade, per se, but a mark of influence and impact.

Trump was the Person of the Year in 2016. "This year brought forth the consequences of Trump's disruption," the magazine said of the runner-up. "The deficit soared. The stock market trembled. The voters revolted. Special counsel Robert Mueller circled closer. Trump has tested the system and exposed its weaknesses, but also revealed its strength."

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said that the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. is on the way back to this country and the Trump Administration expects a report from him on the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist with The Washington Post who disappeared while visiting the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.

But Nauert refused to speculate on the cause of the disappearance and who might be responsible, saying they were going to wait for the facts.

She said an investigation is underway by multiple agencies, that the department won't get ahead of that investigation, and warned against relying on "speculation and rumors." That speculation--and reporting--includes that Khashoggi was either kidnapped or killed by the Saudis over his criticism of the government there.

The Washington Post reported Thursday (Oct. 11) that three were U.S. intercepts of Saudi official conversations that suggested Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman "ordered an operation to lure 'Washington Post' columnist Jamal Kashoggi back to Saudi Arabia from his home in Virginia and then detain him." But Turkish officials concluded Khashoggi was instead killed at the consulate, said the Post.

The Post said the Administration had not commented on whether it warned Khashoggi about the potential detention.