U.S. report: Saudi prince targeted murdered journalist
Saudis disavow taking part in slaying; U.S. sanctions 76 people
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, directed the operation that ended with the grisly murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to an unclassified U.S. intelligence report released Friday.
The four-page report said the goal of the mission in 2018, which included seven members of the crown prince’s “elite personal protective detail,” was to capture or kill Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and prominent critic of the kingdom’s rulers.
“We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decision making in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman’s protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi,” said the four-page report.
A classified version of the report was completed shortly after Khashoggi was lured into a Saudi Consulate in Turkey and killed by a team of assassins on Oct. 2, 2018. But the Trump administration withheld the findings, reflecting the former president’s embrace of the up-and-coming crown prince as the presumptive heir to the kingdom’s throne even after Khashoggi’s brutal slaying.
The decision to release the report comes as U.S. President Joe
Biden moves to reshape the relationship between Washington and Riyadh in ways that will inevitably strain it. Biden also is slashing U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which has caused devastating civilian casualties, and attempting to resuscitate the Iran nuclear agreement.
Khashoggi, who had been living in the United States and writing for The Washington Post’s opinion section, was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork he needed to remarry. Once inside, he was killed and dismembered. His remains have never been recovered, and a United Nations report released in 2019 said the murder had been carefully planned.
Riyadh first falsely claimed that Khashoggi had left the consulate, but later admitted that he had been killed. However, the crown prince, commonly known by his initials MBS, never acknowledged ordering the assassination.
Biden said Wednesday that he had read the report, although he did not comment further. On Thursday, for the first time as president, Biden spoke by phone with Saudi King Salman, the father of the crown prince, according to the White House.
Aides had pointedly said Biden would not be speaking with Mohammed, though he is widely seen as the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
The two leaders “affirmed the historic nature” of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, the White House said, but Biden also raised human rights issues with the king, including the case of a prominent Saudi woman activist imprisoned and allegedly tortured before her recent release.
Biden was expected to use the diplomatic call to prepare Salman for the release of the Khashoggi report.
In an interview with Univision News on Friday, Biden said he had told Saudi King Salman this week “that the rules are changing” in the kingdom’s relationship with the U.S. and that “we’re going to be announcing significant changes today and on Monday.”
Prince Mohammed has denied involvement in the killing, while saying he accepts symbolic responsibility as the country’s de facto ruler. Saudi officials have said the murder was carried out by rogue agents who’ve since been prosecuted, and they rejected the report’s findings on Friday.
On Friday, the U.S. imposed sanctions including a visa ban against 76 Saudi citizens who were accused to threatening dissidents outside of the country, including several alleged to have been involved in Khashoggi’s brutal slaying, the German news outlet Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.
“The United States government is announcing additional measures to reinforce the world’s condemnation of that crime, and to push back against governments that reach beyond their borders to threaten and attack journalists and perceived dissidents for exercising their fundamental freedoms,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.