Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Saudi Arabia has lots of questions to answer if it turns out officials there carried out the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and warned that U.S. credibility on human rights would be permanently damaged if the U.S. lets that country get away with it.
“Where’s the body? Why wasn’t the family notified? Why have they spent the better part of eight or nine days saying they didn’t know anything about it?” Rubio asked on CNN.
Khashoggi is believed to have been killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Saudi government has thus far denied involvement in his disappearance, but Khashoggi was last seen Oct. 2 entering the consulate to obtain papers to marry his fiancee.
[Opinion: Saudis claim ‘rogue killers’ got Jamal Khashoggi; they might as well say a dog ate him]
Turkish authorities allege Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a group of Saudi agents who flew in from Riyadh.
CNN reported Monday that the Saudis might admit the death was a result of an interrogation gone wrong, despite their previous insistence that Khashoggi left the consulate.
Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has called on the U.S. to re-evaluate its arms sales to the kingdom in response to the alleged killing.
“As far as arms sales are concerned, it’s not the money. There are other countries we could sell that to,” he said.
“I don’t care how much money it is,” he added. “There isn’t enough money in the world to purchase back our credibility on human rights and the way nations should conduct themselves. We lose our credibility and our moral standing to criticize [Russian President Vladimir] Putin for murdering people, [Syrian President Bashar] Assad for murdering people, [President Nicolas] Maduro in Venezuela for murdering people. We can’t say anything about that if we allow Saudi Arabia to do it and all we do is a diplomatic slap on the wrist.”
President Trump, however, has said the U.S. would be “punishing” itself if it stopped arms sales to the country over the journalist’s death.
