Recording might link prince to Khashoggi killing
Intelligence officials say call is ‘incriminating,’ but not ironclad evidence
WASHINGTON— Shortly after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed last month at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, a member of the kill team instructed a superior over the phone to “tell your boss,” believed to be Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that the operatives had carried out their mission, according to three people familiar with a recording of Khashoggi’s killing collected by Turkish intelligence.
The recording, shared last month with CIA director Gina Haspel, is seen by intelligence officials as some of the strongest evidence linking Crown Prince Mohammed to the killing of Khashoggi, a Virginia resident and Washington Post columnist whose death prompted an international outcry.
While he was not mentioned by name, U.S. intelligence officials believe “your boss” was a reference to Crown Prince Mohammed. Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, one of 15 Saudis dispatched to Istanbul to confront Khashoggi, made the phone call and spoke in Arabic, the people said.
Turkish intelligence officers have told U.S. officials they believe that Mutreb, a security officer who frequently travelled with Crown Prince Mohammed, was speaking to one of the crown prince’s aides.
While translations of the Arabic may differ, the people briefed on the call said Mutreb also said to the aide words to the effect of “the deed was done.”
“A phone call like that is about as close to a smoking gun as you are going to get,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former CIA officer now at the Brookings Institution. “It is pretty incriminating evidence.”
Turkish officials have said that the audio does not conclusively implicate Crown Prince Mohammed, and U.S. intelligence and other government officials have cautioned that however compelling the recording may be, it is still not irrefutable evidence of his involvement in the death of Khashoggi.
Even if Mutreb believed the killing was ordered by the crown prince, for example, he may have had an inaccurate understanding of the origins of the order. Crown Prince Mohammed is not specifically named on the recording, and intelligence officials do not have ironclad certainty that Mutreb was referring to him.
In a statement Monday, Saudi officials denied that the crown prince “had any knowledge whatsoever” of Khashoggi’s killing. Referring to Mutreb’s instructions to “tell your boss,” the Saudi statement said that Turkey had “allowed our intelligence services to hear recordings, and at no moment was there any reference to the mentioned phrase in the such recordings.”
The Turks may possess multiple recordings, including surveillance of telephone calls, and Turkish authorities may have shared the audio only selectively. A CIA spokesperson declined to comment.
The call was part of a recording that Turkish officials played for Haspel during her visit in October to Ankara, Turkey’s capital, but they did not allow her to bring it back to the United States.
On Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey announced that his government had shared the audio with Saudi Arabia, the United States, Canada and other western allies.
But while Turkish officials have played the recording for U.S. and other intelligence agencies and provided transcripts, the Turks have not handed over the recording for independent analysis, according to Turkish officials.