Khashoggi hitman called Saudi crown prince seven times on day of execution
Data trail leads to autocratic ruler’s door as kingdom admits it IS murder
A HITMAN made seven calls to the Saudi crown prince’s private office on the day Jamal Khashoggi was killed, it was claimed last night.
Turkish intelligence agencies intercepted 14 phone calls by Major General Maher Abdulaziz Mutrib, a former diplomat.
Seven of them were to the office of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – the contents of which would be ‘explosive’ if leaked, a source claimed. Mutrib, who was pictured outside Downing Street in March during the crown prince’s state visit, was described as the ‘spinal cord’ of a Saudi death squad.
The allegations are yet further evidence that point the finger at Saudi Arabia’s de-facto ruler. It comes after a top Saudi minister admitted for the first time that journalist Mr Khashoggi was murdered at his country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2.
He blamed a ‘rogue operation’ for the killing, which has sparked an international outcry and plunged the kingdom into a diplomatic crisis.
A source told online news service Middle East Eye that hit squad members sent Mr Khashoggi’s fingers back to Riyadh to prove the mission’s success and that they were presented to the crown prince, who is also known as ‘MBS’.
‘MBS always said that he will cut off the fingers of every writer who criticises him,’ the source said.
According to the newspaper Yeni Safak, Mutrib spoke to Badr alAsaker, head of the crown prince’s private office, four times after Mr Khashoggi was killed.
The 59-year-old journalist was killed by a 15-strong assassination squad flown in from Riyadh on private jets.
Saudi Arabia admitted for the first time on Friday that he had been killed, saying he had accidentally died after a ‘fist fight’, although hours later this was changed.
Late on Sunday, foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir told Fox News the journalist was murdered, blaming a ‘rogue operation’.
He said the act had been a ‘tremendous mistake’ and denied the Crown Prince had ordered the killing of Mr Khashoggi – a highprofile critic of the leader.
Mr al-Jubeir said: ‘We are determined to find out all the facts and we are determined to punish those who are responsible for this murder.’ He said officials did not know where the body was.
He added: ‘Even the senior leadership of our intelligence service was not aware of this.’
Mr Khashoggi’s body is said to have been rolled up in a rug and taken out in a consular vehicle. In a further development yesterday, police discovered an abandoned vehicle they believe belonged to the Saudi consulate. It was located in a private car park about 16km away.
A spokesman for Turkey’s ruling AK party yesterday said the murder was ‘monstrously planned’. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he will today reveal the ‘naked truth’ about what happened to Mr Khashoggi after weeks of denials by Saudi Arabia.
His statement will come on the same day as the opening to the socalled ‘Davos in the desert’ investment conference in Riyadh, which many officials have boycotted.
But in a fresh embarrassment for organisers, hackers targeted a website promoting the event and posted a mocked-up picture showing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman standing over Mr Khashoggi with a bloody scimitar sword. Meanwhile, former UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson claimed Mr Khashoggi, who moved to Washington a year ago fearing reprisals for his views, had been tricked into going to Istanbul.
It emerged that Mr Khashoggi had applied in the US capital for a document certifying that he had been divorced because he wished to marry his Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz.
But in a ‘transparent ruse’, the Saudi-born Washington Post columnist was told he had to travel to Istanbul to get it, Mr Johnson wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
In another day of high drama yesterday, British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt warned that members of the Saudi regime could face sanctions over the murder.
Condemning the ‘appalling brutality’, he said measures could ultimately include asset freezes and travel bans – which could target the crown prince himself.
Mr Hunt told the British Commons: ‘When we have full accountability for the crimes that have been committed, which have been described by the Saudis as murder, then that accountability must extend to the people who gave the order for the crimes to be committed, not just those who were there on the ground.’