Saudi Arabia's 'Davos in the Desert' website hacked with images of MbS 'executing Khashoggi'

Hackers allegedly defaced the website of Saudi Arabia's Future Investment Initiative – dubbed "Davos in the Desert" – on Monday, uploading an image of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman preparing to execute slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The image uploaded to the website shows the Saudi crown prince standing over Khashoggi with the words "ISIS" written on his clothes and brandishing a large sword, tech website Motherboard reported.

Khashoggi is pictured wearing an orange jump suit in the image, a reference to the clothing the Islamic State group forced its victims to wear before executing them, often by beheading.

An Islamic State flag appears in the background.

"For the sake of security for children worldwide, we urge all countries to put sanction on the Saudi regime," a message under the image read.

"The regime, aligned with the United States, must be kept responsible for its barbaric and inhuman action, such as killing its own citizen Jamal Khashoggi and thousands of innocent people in Yemen," it went on.

"The medieval Saudi regime is one of the sources for #Terrorism_Financing in the world."

The website for Future Investment Initiative was offline at the time of publication, but screenshots of the image were shared on Twitter by several journalists and analysts.

A screenshot of the alleged defacement shared by Nahayat Tizhoosh, associate producer at CBC Network, showed another image containing names, telephone numbers, and email addresses.

A message above reads: "Exposing a thousand terrorists and spies of the Saudi regime who perform malicious activities around the globe."

Multiple people included in the table did not immediately respond to Motherboard's requests for comment.

Saudi Arabia scrambled on Monday to prepare for the investment summit after a string of cancellations from global business titans over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Dozens of executives - from bankers JP Morgan to carmaker Ford and ride-hailing app Uber - scrapped plans to attend.

Media powerhouses like Bloomberg, CNN and the Financial Times have also pulled out and on Saturday, Australia withdrew its representatives, saying it was "no longer appropriate" to attend, due to the Khashoggi affair.

Billed last year as a watershed economic opportunity for the conservative petro-state, the Future Investment Initiative has now come to symbolise global outrage over the silencing of critics.