Albuquerque Journal

Saudi official says global outcry over Khashoggi ‘hysterical’

- BY AYA BATRAWY

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat said Saturday that the global outcry and media focus on the killing of a Saudi journalist earlier this month has become “hysterical” as he urged the public to wait for the results of an investigat­ion before ascribing blame to the kingdom’s top leadership.

Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist critical of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed by Saudi agents at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

“This issue has become fairly hysterical,” Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said. “I think people have assigned blame to Saudi Arabia with such certainty before the investigat­ion is complete.”

Some of those implicated in Khashoggi’s killing are close to Prince Mohammed, who is the kingdom’s heir apparent. His condemnati­on of the killing as “heinous” and “painful” has so far failed to ease suspicions that such a high-level operation could have been carried out without his knowledge.

Al-Jubeir addressed the mounting skepticism around the crown prince’s alleged involvemen­t. He was speaking in response to questions from Western journalist­s at an annual conference of internatio­nal officials, including U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, in Bahrain.

“We have made clear that we are going to have a full and transparen­t investigat­ion, the results of which will be released. We have made it very clear that those responsibl­e will be held responsibl­e,” he said, adding that the kingdom has also put in place mechanisms to ensure this does not happen again.

“We’re trying to uncover what happened. We know that a mistake was committed. We know that people exceeded their authority and we know that we’re investigat­ing them,” he said.

But he cautioned that “investigat­ions take time.”

“Unfortunat­ely, there has been this hysteria in the media about Saudi Arabia’s guilt before the investigat­ion is completed,” he said.

Turkey alleges a 15-member hit squad was sent to Istanbul to kill the journalist, a onetime Saudi insider who became an outspoken critic of Prince Mohammed in columns for The Washington Post.

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