‘ROGUE KILLERS BEHIND SAUDI JOURNALIST’S DISAPPEARANCE’

ISTANBUL: US President Donald Trump Monday suggested “rogue killers” could be behind the disappearance of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and said he had despatched secretary of state Mike Pompeo to Riyadh to meet Saudi King Salman and go to Turkey, if needed, to get to the bottom of the case.

“We are going to leave nothing uncovered,” Trump told reporters. He referred to a phone conversation with King Salman and said, “With that being said, the king firmly denies any knowledge of it. He didn’t really know, maybe, I don’t want to get into his mind but it sounded to me like maybe it could have been rogue killers, who knows?”

He added: “We’re going to try get to the bottom of it very soon but his was a flat denial.”

Pompeo will leave for Riyadh on Monday, a state department spokesperson said.

King Salman has ordered an internal probe by a public prosecutor, according to reports, and a joint team of officials from Saudi Arabia and Turkey began a joint inspection of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where Khashoggi was last seen entering on October 2.

The journalist, a critic of the Saudi government, has been living in self-imposed exile in the US since 2017. Turkish officials have said, without offering evidence, that Khashoggi was murdered by a team of 15 Saudi men, who dismembered the body for disposal. Saudi Arabia has denied it has anything to do with Khashoggi’s disappearance.