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ISTANBUL (AP) – Saudi leaders are planning to blame a senior intelligence official close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, three people on Saudi projects said Thursday.
The plan to blame General Ahmed al-Assiri, the high adviser to the Crown Prince, would be an extraordinary recognition of the magnitude of the international response to the kingdom since the death of Mr. Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi dissident. A Virginia resident and Washington Post contributor, Mr. Khashoggi was last seen in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul 16 days ago.
Blaming General Assiri could also provide a plausible explanation for the assassination and help to deflect the Crown Prince's blame, which the US intelligence services are increasingly convinced is causing the disappearance.
Turkish officials say they have evidence that 15 Saudi agents have been dismembered and murdered Mr. Khashoggi at the consulate. After two weeks of widespread denials and growing pressure from Turkey and Washington, Saudi Arabia announced that it would conduct its own investigation to determine who was responsible.
[QuatredessuspectsdanslemeurtredeJamalKhashoggi[FourofthesuspectsinJamalKhashoggi'skilling[QuatredessuspectsdanslemeurtredeJamalKhashoggi[FourofthesuspectsinJamalKhashoggi’skillingbelong to the security team of the Saudi Crown Prince.]
But even though the investigation is apparently still ongoing, the Saudis already designate General Assiri as the culprit, according to the three people aware of Saudi projects. People close to the White House have already been informed and given the name of Mr. Assiri.
It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to calm the international crisis and what it may mean for Prince Mohammed, the king of the kingdom.
President Trump, who has made the Crown Prince a pillar of his Middle East policy, has been ambiguous, sometimes raising questions about Saudi Arabia's guilt and resisting congressional appeals for sanctions.
Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and Middle East advisor, has urged the president to stand with Prince Mohammed, according to a person close to the White House and a former official familiar with the talks.
Mr Kushner argued that the outrage over Mr Khashoggi's disappearance and possible assassination would disappear, as was the case after other Saudi mistakes, such as the kidnapping of the Lebanese Prime Minister. and the murder of a children's bus in Yemen by an air strike.
US lawmakers on both sides, however, express much greater horror at what appears to be the brutal murder of Khashoggi, a veteran of the Saudi establishment who was well known to journalists and diplomats. Its history has attracted much more American public attention than mass murders and other atrocities in the region, and a growing number of lawmakers are demanding punishment.
General Assiri, who was previously the spokesman for the military intervention spearheaded by the Saudi government in Yemen, is close enough to the Crown Prince to allow him easy access to his ear and disposes of him. considerable power to recruit junior staff on a mission.
The Saudi leaders are supposed to say that Assiri had received the verbal permission of Prince Mohammed to capture Mr. Khashoggi for interrogation in Saudi Arabia, but either misunderstood his instructions or overruled that authorization and killed the dissident. , according to the two journalists. people familiar with Saudi plans. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to inform the journalists.
Even in this scenario, Prince Mohammed would still have ordered an operation to kidnap a resident of the United States, apparently solely on the basis of his public criticism of Saudi rulers.
Given the high rank of General Assiri, declaring his guilt would also have repercussions on the Crown Prince. Prince Mohammed has elevated General Assiri to his present position, and General Assiri is close enough to him that he often attends when the Crown Prince meets visiting American officials.
Some critics of the kingdom already argue that turning a submarine into a scapegoat would be little more than a diversion.
"The responsibility lies with the de facto ruler, who is the crown prince," said Madawi al-Rasheed, a professor at the London School of Economics and a frequent critic of Prince Mohammed.
Four of the suspects that Turkey has accused of the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi belongs to the security team that travels with Prince Mohammed, and one of them has been photographed or spotted near him during his recent visits to at least five cities – Paris, Madrid , Houston, Boston and the United Nations headquarters in New York.
But the seniority of General Assiri suggests that he led the operation without the additional participation of Prince Mohammed, at least technically plausible. The Saudi officers of lower rank could have believed that the general gave them orders in the name of the prince.
If Mr. Khashoggi were murdered, he could be treated as a capital crime. The question of how the kingdom could punish General Assiri is another question.
The general is a well-known face of the international media since he was appointed spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, intervened in Yemen in 2015. He gave fluent French, English and Arabic interviews, but has often harassed journalists in private their reports did not prove to his taste.
General Assiri was promoted last year to his current position in intelligence and the Saudis should argue that in the Khashoggi case he was trying to prove himself, according to people close to their plans.
General Assiri did not answer the phone calls asking for comments.
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