KHASHOGGI’S SON LEAVES SAUDI ARABIA, US PRAISES DECISION

The son of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi has left Saudi Arabia after the kingdom revoked a travel ban, allowing him to come to the United States — the latest in the saga of the Saudi writer and dissident whose macabre killing earlier this month at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul shocked the world.

State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said Washington welcomes the decision to have Salah Khashoggi and his family leave Saudi Arabia. His US destination was not immediately known but his late father lived in the Washington area.

Palladino said Thursday that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had discussed Jamal Khashoggi’s son during his recent visit to Riyadh and “made it clear” to Saudi leaders that Washington wanted him free to leave the kingdom.

“We are pleased that he is now able to do so,” Palladino said. Saudi media had showed Khashoggi’s son meeting Tuesday with the crown prince, who reportedly expressed his condolences.

Palladino also said Pompeo attended a briefing on the former Washington Post writer’s death by CIA Director Gina Haspel, following her return from Turkey. The White House did not release any details of their meeting.

The developments came after the kingdom on Thursday cited evidence showing Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated, changing its story again to try to ease international outrage over the slaying of a prominent critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The announcement contradicted an earlier Saudi assertion that rogue officials from the kingdom had killed Khashoggi by mistake in a brawl inside their Istanbul consulate. That assertion, in turn, backtracked from an initial statement that Saudi authorities knew nothing about what happened to the columnist for The Washington Post, who vanished after entering the consulate on October 2.

Theshiftingexplanationsindicate Saudi Arabia is scrambling for a way out of the crisis that has enveloped the world’s largest oil exporter and a major US ally in the Middle East. But a solution seems a long way off, partly because of deepening skepticism in Turkey and elsewhere that the brazen crime could have been carried out without the knowledge of Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s heir apparent.