Prince had talked of killing Jamal
Washington, Feb. 8: Saudi Arabia’s crown prince told a senior aide he would go after Jamal Khashoggi “with a bullet” a year before the dissident journalist was killed inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, the New York Times reported quoting US intelligence.
US intelligence understood that Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s 33- year- old de
facto ruler, was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him.
After initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi’s disappearance, the kingdom has acknowledged that a team killed him inside the embassy but described it as a rogue operation not involving the crown prince.
The conversation was intercepted
by US intelligence agencies, as part of routine
efforts to capture and store the communications of global leaders, including allied ones, The Times said.
It was only recently transcribed, because of efforts by US intelligence to find conclusive proof linking the prince to the killing. — AFP
The conversation took place between Prince Mohammed and an aide, Turki Aldakhil, in
September 2017 -- around 13 months before the October 2 killing, the paper said.
The prince said that if Khashoggi could not be enticed to return to Saudi Arabia, then he should be brought back by force. If neither of those methods worked, then he would go after Mr. Khashoggi “with a bullet,” he said.
As long as America remains wicked, we will not abandon ‘ Death to America’
— Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader