Intercepts show plan by Saudis to lure journalist

WASHING TON» Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, ordered an operation to lure Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia from his home in Virginia and detain him, according to U.S. intelligence intercepts of Saudi officials discussing the plan.

The intelligence, described by U.S. officials familiar with it, is another piece of evidence implicating the Saudi regime in Khashoggi’s disappearance last week after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials say a Saudi security team lay in wait for the journalist and killed him.

Khashoggi was a prominent critic of the Saudi government, Mohammed in particular. Several of Khashoggi’s friends said that over the past four months, senior Saudi officials close to the crown prince had called Khashoggi to offer him protection, and even a highlevel job working for the government, if he returned to his home country.

Khashoggi, however, was skeptical of the offers. He told one friend that the government would never make good on its promises not to harm him.

“He said: ‘Are you kidding? I don’t trust them one bit,’ “said Khaled Saffuri, an ArabAmerican political activist, recounting a conversation he had with Khashoggi in May.

Suspect in Bulgarian journalist slaying arrested in Germany.

BULGARIA» German SOFIA, police have arrested a suspect in the rape and killing of a television journalist from Bulgaria whose work highlighted corruption in the East European country, officials said Wednesday.

Bulgaria’s prosecutor general, Sotir Tsatsarov, confirmed the arrest of Severin Krassimirov, a 21yearold Bulgarian citizen.

Prosecutors in the northwestern German state of Lower Saxony said the suspect was arrested Tuesday night outside Hamburg on a European arrest warrant. Prosecutors will examine whether he can be extradited and apply to have him held in formal custody.

Bulgarian Interior Minister Mladen Marinov said investigators had found DNA evidence on the clothes and body of Viktoria Marinova, who was raped and strangled Saturday in the northern town of Ruse. She is survived by a 7yearold daughter. — The Associated Press