Saudi ambassador to the US denies newspaper story of Khashoggi killing
Saudi Arabia’s US ambassador has denied a report claiming that the CIA has concluded the Saudi Crown Prince was involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul last month.
The report on Friday by The
Washington Post was written almost entirely using anonymous sources, including an unidentified US official.
The newspaper claimed there had been a phone call between the prince’s brother and Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Khalid bin Salman, and Khashoggi, who was a contributing columnist to the paper.
It said Prince Khalid told Khashoggi that “he should go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so”, and claimed the call was made at the direction of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Prince Khalid took to Twitter on Friday to dispute the report. “As we told The Washington
Post, the last contact I had with Mr Khashoggi was via text on October 26, 2017,” he wrote. “I never talked to him by phone and certainly never suggested he go to Turkey for any reason.
“I ask the US government to release any information regarding this claim. This is a serious accusation and should not be left to anonymous sources.”
Prince Khalid also said that the paper did not publish the full response sent to it by a Saudi embassy spokesman after inquiries about the reports. The full version, which he posted on Twitter, repeats that he had never discussed “anything related to going to Turkey with Jamal”.
“The ambassador met Jamal once in late September 2017 in person for a cordial discussion, and they communicated via text after the meeting,” the statement read.
“Prince Khalid bin Salman has never had any phone conversations with him. You are welcome to check the phone records and cell phone content to corroborate this, in which case you would have to request it from Turkish authorities as our Public Prosecutor has numerous times to no avail.”
The statement described the purported CIA assessment as false and said that there was no concrete evidence to support these “speculations”.
Earlier on Thursday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir said Prince Mohammed had absolutely nothing to do with Khashoggi’s killing.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Prosecutor accused a rogue band of Saudi operatives of the murder.
On Thursday, the prosecutor’s office said a team who were sent to Istanbul to return Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, “forcibly restrained him and injected him with a large amount of a drug, resulting in an overdose that led to his death.
“After the murder the victim’s body was dismembered by the individuals that had committed the murder and was transferred outside the consulate building,” the office said.
Deputy public prosecutor Shaalan said in Riyadh on Thursday that 11 of 21 suspects detained had been charged with murder.
The public prosecutor’s office has recommended the death penalty for five people who are believed to have ordered and committed the killing.