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By Mohammed Muslemany and Saphora Smith
CAIRO – The United States on Thursday announced sanctions against 17 Saudi officials for the assassination of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi at the Kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.
The news followed the Saudi supreme prosecutor recommending the death sentence to five suspects in the assassination of former regime insider turned critical of de facto Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
US sanctions fall under the Magnitsky Human Rights Act, which allows the government to target perpetrators of human rights violations through sanctions and blocks all property or interests that they have on their territory or who transit.
Saud al-Qahtani is among those sanctioned. As senior official of the Saudi government, he said that he never acted without the direct approval of Prince Mohammed; Maher Mutreb, Al-Qahtani's subordinate and Consul General of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Alotaibi.
Al-Qahtani was part of the planning and execution of the operation that led to the assassination of Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, the Treasury Department said American in a statement. The operation was then coordinated and executed by Mutreb, he added.
"Saudi officials whom we sanction have been involved in the heinous assassination of Jamal Khashoggi," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a statement. "Those individuals who have targeted and brutally killed a journalist who resides and works in the United States are facing consequences for their actions."
Earlier, prosecutor Saud Al-Mojeb told reporters that 21 suspects had been arrested in connection with the case, 11 of whom were accused of the murder he had committed.
In comments broadcast live on Saudi television, he said five suspects had confessed to the murder and recommended their death sentence. Al-Mojeb added that the court would continue to investigate the other suspects.
Khashoggi was killed after entering the consulate in Istanbul on October 2nd.
US officials said they took the journalist's death "very seriously" and pledged to get to the bottom of things at the consulate, while highlighting what they say is the key role of the journalist. Saudi Arabia in the fight against terrorism and the influence of Iran in the country. Middle East.
President Donald Trump also said that he did not want to jeopardize a "huge command" of $ 110 billion worth of weapons, which would support 500,000 jobs in the United States. The figures, according to the experts, are extremely exaggerated. Khashoggi's death intensified pressure on the White House's close relationship with Trump, who chose the kingdom as his first visit abroad.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the sanctions announced on Thursday were "an important step in the response to Khashoggi's murder."
"The State Department will continue to search for all relevant facts, consult Congress and work with other countries to hold those involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi accountable," he said. declared.
The Turkish Foreign Minister responded to the announcement by the Saudi prosecutor stating that the measures taken were not up to Turkey's expectations.
Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Ankara wanted Riyadh to tell who ordered the killing. Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have also repeatedly demanded that the suspects of the murder be brought to justice in Turkey.
"I want to say that we have not found some of his satisfactory explanations," Çavuşoğlu said. "Those who gave the order, the true perpetrators must be revealed.This process can not be closed this way."
Turkey blamed Khashoggi's brutal death at the highest levels of power in Saudi Arabia, claiming that the kingdom had sent an assassination squad in its place.
Fayez Nureldine / AFP – Getty Images File
Al-Mojeb said Khashoggi's planned deportation to Saudi Arabia was orchestrated by the deputy head of the kingdom's intelligence services, Ahmad al-Assiri.
Assiri would have been a close confidant of the Crown Prince and would have been fired for ordering Khashoggi's return. Al-Assiri was not one of the people sanctioned by the United States.
Al-Qahtani – who is one of the sanctioned people – is also accused of planning and ordering Khashoggi's forced return to the kingdom, according to the AP.
Prosecutors said the two men had formed a Saudi team of 15 people to conduct the operation, the news agency reported. Saudi prosecutors said the men considered Khashoggi a threat because of his writers' work and because he was allegedly supported by groups and countries hostile to Saudi Arabia.
However, they did not accuse al-Assiri or al-Qahtani of ordering the murder itself.
According to the prosecutor, a plot was launched on 29 September – three days before the journalist's disappearance – for the team to kill Khashoggi if the negotiators failed to persuade him to return home.
Al-Mojeb said that Khashoggi was killed by a lethal injection of narcotics. He said that the injection had been administered after the start of a quarrel and that Khashoggi had been detained.
His assassins then dismembered the body and removed it from the consulate, he added.
Among the other details confirmed during the press conference, it was that the consulate cameras had been deactivated before the attack.
While the kingdom is considered a pivot of Trump's regional ambitions, the Khashoggi crisis has helped to crystallize the growing malaise about Prince Mohammed.
The Saudis repeatedly denied that the prince had knowledge of the plot.
At a televised news conference held on Thursday, the Saudi Foreign Minister reaffirmed that Prince Mohammed had "nothing to do" with the assassination of Khashoggi.
"These are individuals who go beyond their authority and go beyond their mandate," he said. "These people have made a big mistake and for that mistake they will pay the price."
Earlier this week, National Security Advisor John Bolton said that people who listened to an audio recording of what happened to Khashoggi do not think it involves Prince Salman in his death.
"This is not the conclusion to which people who have heard it have arrived," Bolton told reporters at a summit in Singapore.
Mohammed Muslemany reported from Cairo; Saphora Smith of London; and Abigail Williams from Washington.
Abigail Williams, Associated Press and Reuters contributed.
