Possible protests, snubs and prosecution cloud Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s G20 bid to restore his battered image

Saudi Arabia’s controversial Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman faces the possible wrath of an Argentinian prosecutor as well as the potential cold shoulder from world leaders during a G20 summit in Buenos Aires this week that marks his first foray outside the Arab world after the 2 October murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi allegedly at the hands of agents within his political and security entourage.

The prince arrived in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, landing in the city after an official visit to Tunisia, amid calls for his prosecution for war crimes by human rights organisations over his handling of the war in Yemen. Late on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch declared that the Argentinians are moving ahead with a case against him, asking a judge to begin collecting evidence from Saudi and Yemeni sources and the country’s diplomats to render an opinion on his diplomatic status.

The 33-year-old crown prince could have cancelled the trip, and it carries some risks. But he’s betting his gamble will pay off.

Argentina, which suffered through its own long night of brutal dictatorship at the hands of thuggish generals, has a constitutional clause allowing for prosecution of international figures on war crimes charges, though it remains unlikely that Argentinian judges indict him, or that Buenos Aires’ centre-right government would implement any ruling.

G20 summits are generally an opportunity for leaders of the world’s richest, their chief bankers and finance ministers to discuss trade and the management of the global economic system. Last year, Saudi King Salman cancelled his trip to the G20 summit in Hamburg, dispatching his finance minister and another top official instead in the wake of the crisis surrounding the ongoing blockade against Qatar

Amid continuing global uproar over the killing and dismemberment of the Saudi journalist, Prince Mohammad too could have easily cancelled – dispatching another official in his place. Instead, he arrived a day or two early.

The summit may present some awkward moments at the seaside Costa Salguero convention centre, where the event will be held. It will be the first time the prince will confront Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, with which Riyadh cut trade ties over a tweet by Ottawa’s foreign minister calling attention to human rights abuses in the kingdom, in what was seen as an epic temper tantrum by the young would-be monarch.

German chancellor Angela Merkel and the Dutch premier Mark Rutte, who have both suspended weapons sales to Saudi over the Khashoggi killing and the Yemen war, will also be attending the leaders’ summit, which begins on Friday.

“The Saudi crown prince is going to be keen to make this trip as an expression of him having weathered the storm following the Khashoggi affair – but a real test of that is going to be whether or not world leaders will actually have their pictures taken with him, shaking his hand,” said HA Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and Atlantic Council.

“There’s still a lot of domestic anger about the Khashoggi affair in a lot of western capitals.”

As always, huge and raucous demonstrations are planned against the gathering of the world leaders, and protesters will likely invoke Prince Mohammad’s name and image as a trope to underscore a capitalist system they consider brutal and exploitative.

But the prince probably calculate that the prestige of appearing among world leaders in photos and handshakes outweighs the risks of encountering protesters or snubs, or the relatively minuscule possibility of being arrested on charges of war crimes against Yemeni civilians.

Being photographed shaking hands with world leaders not only solidifies his international stature and quells any doubts about whether he’s become a pariah to lawmakers in the US considering punishments against him; it may also subdue any talk of replacing him as heir to the Saudi throne at home.

The administration of Donald Trump, who has described Prince Mohammad as the cornerstone of his ill-defined vision to secure a Middle East peace and confront Iran, has already done its part to launder his image. In a widely derided piece that included several inaccuracies, secretary of state Mike Pompeo described critics of the crown prince as appeasers of Iran.

“Abandoning or downgrading the US-Saudi alliance would also do nothing to push Riyadh in a better direction at home,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. “The crown prince has moved the country in a reformist direction, from allowing women to drive and attend sporting events, to curbing the religious police and calling for a return to moderate Islam.”

Even Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has spearheaded the effective campaign of leaks that have kept the Khashoggi matter in world headlines for nearly two months, has insisted he’s willing to meet with Prince Mohammad at the summit.

The prince “has asked Erdogan about the possibility of a meeting in Buenos Aires. Erdogan’s answer was: ‘We’ll see,’” Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the Suddeutsche Zeitung on Monday.

Mr Erdogan has all but accused the prince of ordering the killing of Khashoggi, insisting the murder came at the behest of the “highest levels” of the Saudi government, while absolving King Salman.

On Wednesday, more possible evidence tying Prince Mohammad to the murders emerged in a report by the newspaper Milliyet, alleging that the team of killers dispatched from Riyadh initially planned to be killed in two villas in the northwestern Turkish province of Yalova owned by two Saudi businessmen, Mohammad Ahmed al-Fozan and Abdulaziz Ibrahim al-Omary, it described as friends of Prince Mohammad.

Mr Erdogan has repeatedly insisted he won’t allow Khashoggi’s killers to get away unscathed. But there are also indications that the Khashoggi affair is falling off Turkey’s agenda.

“A number of conscientious journalists and human rights activists continue to follow up the savage murder,” columnist Deniz Zeyrek wrote in the opposition newspaper Sozcu on Tuesday.”But at the government level we don’t hear the same determination and loud voice of 10 days ago.”