President’s claim that Mohammed bin Salman had nothing to do with 2018 killing contradicts US intelligence
Donald Trump on Tuesday said that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, had nothing to do with the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, whose assassination in 2018 left the Saudi leader an international pariah.
But Trump’s own intelligence services, as well as a 2019 UN investigation, have painted a very different picture. The assassination took place inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where a 15-person team led by a close associate of Prince Mohammed was said to have drugged, murdered and dismembered Khashoggi in order to hide evidence of the crime.
“Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen,” Trump said when asked about the killing by a reporter during an Oval Office appearance with Prince Mohammed on Tuesday. “But [Prince Mohammed] knew nothing about it,” continued Trump. “And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”
That is not what the US Office of the director of national intelligence concluded in 2021, when a report by the agency laid the blame for Khashoggi’s death directly on Prince Mohammed, who on Tuesday made his first visit to the US since the assassination.
