Police find evidence of Khashoggi slaying

Security detail members, friend gaining attention.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Saudi Arabia to talk to officials about the fate of writer Jamal Khashoggi.

ISTANBUL — One of the suspects identified by Turkey in the di sappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — seen disembarking from air- planes with him in Paris and Madrid and photographed standing guard during his visits this year to Houston, Boston and the United Nations.

Three others are linked by witnesses and other records to the Saudi crown prince’s security detail.

A fifth is a forensic doctor who holds senior positions in the Saudi Interior Ministry and medical establish- ment, a figure of such stat- ure that he could be directed only by a high-ranking Saudi authority. Khashoggi disappeared on Oct. 2 and they might provide a direct link between what happened and Prince Mohammed.

That would undercut any suggestion that Khashoggi died in a rogue operation unsanctioned by the crown prince. Their connection to him could also make it more difficult for the White House and Congress to accept such an explanation.

How much blame for Khashoggi’s disappear- ance or death settles on the 33-year-old crown prince has become a decisive factor in his standing in the eyes of the West and within the royal family. The prince has presented himself as a reformer intent on opening up the kingdom’s economy and culture, and has used that image to try to influence White House policy in the region and to woo West- ern investors to help diversify the Saudi economy.

But the international revul- sion at the reported assassi- nation and mutilation of a single newspaper columnist — Khashoggi, who wrote for The Washington Post — has already sullied that image far more than previous missteps by the crown prince, from miring his country in a catastrophic war in Yemen to kidnapping the prime minister of Lebanon.

The crown prince and his father, King Salman, have denied any knowledge of Khashoggi’s whereabouts, repeatedly asserting that he left the consulate freely. Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

But in the last few days, as major American businesses and media companies have withdrawn from a marquee investment conference in Riyadh, the United States, Turkey and Saudi Arabia appear to have been search- ing for a face-saving way out.

The royal court was expected to acknowledge for the first time that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, and to blame a rogue operation conducted without the direct knowledge of the crown prince, according to a person familiar with the Saudi plans. The Saudis, this person said, will hold accountable an intelligence official who received approval from the crown prince to capture and interrogate Khashoggi but killed him instead.

On Monday, after speaking with King Salman, President Trump floated the possibility that Khashoggi was the victim of “rogue killers.”

But such explanations would run up against a host of hard-to-explain obstacles.

The suspects’ positions in the Saudi government and the links of several to the crown prince could make it more difficult to absolve him of responsibility. And the presence of a forensic doctor who specializes in autopsies suggests the operation may have had a lethal intent from the start.

Turkish officials have said they possess evidence that a team of 15 Saudi agents flew into Istanbul on Oct. 2, assassinated Mr. Khashoggi, dismembered his body with a bone saw they had brought for the purpose, and flew out the same day. They said Khashoggi was killed within two hours of his arrival at the consulate.

That would hardly have allowed time for an interrogation to go awry.