Saudi Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed per the instructions of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the CIA has determined.
Although the Saudi Arabian government has claimed that the crown prince was not involved in Khashoggi’s death and the crown prince has publicly said that Khashoggi’s death was a tragedy, the CIA has high confidence in its conclusion that the crown prince was responsible for ordering Khashoggi’s assassination, according to the Washington Post.
“The accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved,” said a U.S. official with knowledge of the CIA’s conclusions told the Post.
The official characterized the crown prince — commonly referred to as MBS — as a person who “goes from zero to 60, doesn’t seem to understand that there are some things you can’t do.”
Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the crown prince and the Saudi government, disappeared on Oct. 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to receive paperwork for his upcoming wedding to his Turkish fiancee.
Saudi Arabia first said that Khashoggi had left the consulate alive, but later admitted he was dead. Saudi Arabia’s story about his death has changed multiple times, and earlier this week a Saudi public prosecutor claimed a rogue group was involved and that Khashoggi “was forcibly restrained and injected with a large amount of a drug resulting in an overdose that led to his death.”
In a phone call examined by the CIA, the crown prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, advised Khashoggi to go to the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul to obtain the paperwork he was seeking and guaranteed he would be safe.
Khalid had been instructed to make the phone call by the crown prince, but it’s uncertain if the ambassador was aware that Khashoggi would be killed upon entering the consulate.
A spokesperson for the Saudi embassy in Washington claimed Khalid and Khashoggi never talked about “anything related to going to Turkey” and said that details from the CIA’s “purported assessment are false. We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the primary basis for these speculations.”
The CIA has also examined other audio recordings, including one from the Saudi consulate that shows Khashoggi was killed shortly after he arrived at the consulate in the Saudi consul general’s office. The consul general is heard saying that Khashoggi’s body needed to be disposed of and that evidence must be cleared.
A spokesperson for the CIA declined to provide comment to the Post.
It was reported last month that the Saudi government had launched a campaign lasting for at least a year to persuade Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia. He had been presented several job offers, but had rejected them due to concern that he would be imprisoned or worse.
The crown prince’s motives are uncertain, given that Khashoggi wasn’t advocating for the crown prince to be removed. The CIA has suggested one possibility is that the crown prince believed Khashoggi was part of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that is recognized by Saudi Arabia as a terrorist organization.
The Post reported earlier this month that the crown prince accused Khashoggi of being part of the Muslim Brotherhood during a phone call with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and White House national security adviser John Bolton.
Khashoggi’s family has denied that he was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
