NATION & WORLD SAUDIS: CROWN PRINCE DIDN’T ORDER KILLING
Foreign minister makes denial as uproar continues from Turkey and U.S. lawmakers.
ISTANBUL» Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister denied on Sunday that the nation’s powerful young crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, but the attempt to distance Mohammed bin Salman from the journalist’s demise did little to blunt an international uproar that could test Saudi Arabia’s status as a regional power.
At the same time, Saudi officials have failed to answer for where Khashoggi’s remains are and have offered inconsistent narratives for how he was killed, undermining the government’s assertion that Khashoggi died after a fistfight broke out when he was confronted by agents seeking to bring him back to Riyadh while he was visitingthe Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
That explanation will face a fresh challenge on Tuesday when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to reveal details of his government’s investigation into the killing of Khashoggi, a move that could directly contradict Saudi Ara bia’s official account of what happened inside its consulate.
Erdogan said he would explain the episode “in a very different way” when his ruling party meets, adding to the already intense global pressure Saudi leadership has faced to provide a full picture of how Khashoggi was killed.
“We seek justice and this will be revealed in all its naked truth, not through some ordinary steps but in all its naked truth,” Erdogan said on Sunday, according to the Anadolu news agency. “The incident will be revealed entirely.”
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister sought to contain the fallout on Sunday while telegraphing the kingdom’s priority: shielding crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman from growing speculation that Khashoggi’s killing could not have happened without his knowledge or consent.
“This was an operation that was a rogue operation,” Adel alJubeir told Fox News. “This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had. They made a mistake when they killed Jamal Khashoggi.”
Senior Republicans and Democrats proposed a range of severe punishments, including sanctions, the expulsion of the Saudi ambassador and the cutting of arms sales. Nearly all of the calls for repercussions have centered on whether Mohammed knew of or ordered the operation to kill Khashoggi, a U.S.based Washington Post contributing columnist and former royal insider turned critic.
“It’s my thinking that MBS was involved in this, that he directed this and that this person was purposefully murdered,” Sen. Bob Corker, RTenn., in an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, referring to the crown prince.
Corker — who chairs the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee — called for a “collective response” by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany if an investigation reveals the crown prince was behind Khashoggi’s killing.
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Sen. Richard Durbin, DIll., said the Saudi ambassador should be formally expelled from the United States if an investigation reveals the crown prince’s involvement.