Trudeau: Canadian intelligence has heard tapes of Khashoggi killing

PARIS — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday became the first Western leader to acknowledge his country had heard recordings of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.

“Canada has been fully briefed up on what Turkey had to share,” Trudeau said from Paris, where he was attending the Peace Forum following the World War I armistice centenary.

His comments come just two days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had given recordings “to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them.”

The Canadian leader is the first since that announcement to officially confirm that his country’s intelligence had listened to the audio as Canada’s intelligence agencies continue to work “very closely” with Turkish intelligence on Khashoggi’s killing.

Trudeau said that he himself had not heard the shared audio, which is the latest move by Turkey to maintain international pressure on Saudi Arabia to stop a cover up of the Oct. 2 killing.

He declined to give any details on the contents of the tapes.

Trudeau also said he thanked Erdogan in person for “his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation” when the two leaders met in Paris this weekend.

The cooperation between the two countries comes at a rocky moment. In an unrelated diplomatic spat, Canada in August criticized the arrests of Saudi women’s rights activists. In response, Saudi Arabia ordered the Canadian ambassador to leave the kingdom and froze all new business between the two countries.

France’s account somewhat differed on Erdogan’s claim to have shared the audio.

When questioned on France 2 Television Monday, French Foreign Minister JeanYves Le Drian said Turkey has “not to my knowledge” given the French government any such recordings, and suggested the Turks were playing games.

“If the Turkish president has information to give to us, he must give it to us. … That means he is playing a political game in this situation,” Le Drian said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused his French counterpart of “impertinence” and said Turkish officials had shared “all information” with France’s intelligence on Oct. 24.