Saudi Arabia rejects Turkey’s extradition order in killing

MANAMA, Bahrain — Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister on Saturday rejected a call by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to try the suspects in the killing of dissident commentator Jamal Khashoggi in that country, saying the men arrested would be prosecuted on Saudi soil.

Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir called the international outrage over the killing “fairly hysterical” and said that once the Saudi investigation was complete, the suspects would be held accountable “in Saudi Arabia.”

“Unfortunately, there has been this hysteria in the media before the investigation was complete,” he said during a panel at the Manama Dialogue, which was organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Manama, the capital of Bahrain.

Khashoggi, a Virginia resident and a columnist for the Washington Post who was also a critic of Saudi Arabia’s rulers, was killed Oct. 2 by a team of Saudi agents in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Turkish officials have said the agents dismembered Khashoggi, as part of a premeditated assassination. Many current and former Western officials have argued that such an operation could have been authorized only by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Erdogan called on Saudi Arabia to extradite any suspects for a trial in Turkey. He has argued that the rulers of Saudi Arabia face a conflict of interest in overseeing any trial because the killing was ordered and directed from within the Saudi government for political reasons.

Al-Jubeir’s remarks Saturday amounted to a rejection of Erdogan’s request for extradition. The foreign minister also did not directly respond to questions about how the kingdom would persuade its allies that Prince Mohammed had no ties to the killing.

Saudi Arabia acknowledged that Khashoggi had died inside the consulate only after more than two weeks of changing stories.

The disclosure Thursday that the killing was premeditated appeared to have been timed to get ahead of a report to President Donald Trump by CIA Director Gina Haspel, who visited Ankara, the Turkish capital, this past week. Turkish officials have said they have audio recordings of the killings inside the consulate, presumably obtained though surveillance, and Haspel was expected to hear those recordings.

The kingdom said it had arrested 18 Saudis in connection with the killing. The royal court also fired a number of senior intelligence officials said by Saudi officials to have orchestrated the operation or participated in covering it up.

In his comments Saturday, al-Jubeir said the kingdom’s alliance with the United States was “ironclad.”

After the investigation, he said, “We will know the truth.”