Prince, aide exchanged messages relating to killing of Khashoggi
In the hours before and after the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a senior aide who allegedly oversaw the assassination exchanged multiple messages, according to people familiar with the matter.
The communications between the two men are another piece of evidence tying the crown prince to the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, a former palace insider turned prominent critic, who also was a contributing columnist to The Washington Post.
The CIA included the existence of the messages in its classified assessment that Mohammed is likely to have ordered Mr. Khashoggi’s death, a view that agency officials have shared with members of Congress and the White House.
Mohammed exchanged the messages on Oct. 2 with Saud al-Qahtani, one of his closest aides and a fierce public supporter who has kept a blacklist of those he deems disloyal to the kingdom. The content of the messages, and what form the messages took, was not known, according to people familiar with the matter.
Citing portions of the CIA’s written assessment, the Wall Street Journal first reported on Saturday that Mohammed had sent at least 11 messages to Qahtani before and after the killing.
The CIA has rated its assessment that Mohammed was involved in the killing at “medium-to-high confidence,” and privately, officials have said it is inconceivable that the prince, who exercises total authority over the government, could not have known about such an audacious operation. The Post had previously described officials as saying that the CIA had high confidence in its assessment.
“The accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved,” said a U.S. official familiar with the CIA’s conclusions.
But the agency has not found any single piece of evidence that irrefutably links Mohammed directly to the killing, people familiar with the intelligence said. Trump administration officials continued to stress that point and emphasized the importance of the United States’ maintaining a close relationship with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has acknowledged that its operatives killed Mr. Khashoggi, but it says the operation was not authorized by the crown prince and was undertaken by rogue actors.
“I have read every piece of intelligence that is in the possession of the United States government,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview with CNN on Saturday, “and when it is done, when you complete that analysis, there’s no direct evidence linking him to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.”
Mr. Pompeo, who declined to comment on the CIA’s classified assessment, said the United States was working closely with Saudi Arabia on major foreign policy issues, including Afghanistan, and that the kingdom was a vital regional counterweight to Iran.
“They are a relationship that has mattered for 70 years across Republican and Democrat administrations alike,” said Mr. Pompeo, who previously served as the CIA director. “It remains an important relationship, and we’re aiming to keep that relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”