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By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The CIA believes that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, sources close to the case said, complicating President Donald Trump's efforts to preserve links with a key ally of the United States.
The sources said the CIA had informed other parts of the US government, including Congress, of its assessment, which contradicts the Saudi government's claims that Prince Mohammed was not involved.
The CIA's discovery, reported for the first time by the Washington Post, is the most definitive assessment ever made by the United States, directly linking Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler to murder.
The White House and the State Department declined to comment.
"The claims contained in this purported assessment are false," a spokeswoman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington said in a statement. "We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the main basis of these speculations."
Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government and Washington Post columnist, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, while he was on the spot collecting the documents he needed to get married. with a Turkish woman.
Khashoggi had resisted pressure from Riyadh for him to return home. Saudi officials said a team of 15 Saudi nationals had been sent to confront Khashoggi at the consulate and that he had been accidentally killed in a strangulation by men who were trying to force him to return to the kingdom.
Turkish officials said the killing was intentional and pressured Saudi Arabia to extradite those responsible for these acts for trial. An adviser to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday accused Saudi Arabia of attempting to conceal the killing.
The Saudi prosecutor said Thursday that he was asking for the death sentence for five suspects charged with the murder. The prosecutor, Shalaan al-Shalaan, told reporters that the crown prince knew nothing about the operation in which Khashoggi's body had been dismembered and removed from the consulate.
US authorities were skeptical that Prince Mohammed would not have been made aware of his intention to kill Khashoggi, given his control over Saudi Arabia.
The newspaper, citing people familiar with the matter, said the CIA's assessment was based in part on a phone call from the Crown Prince's brother, Prince Khaled bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the states. United States, with Khashoggi.
Prince Khaled told Khashoggi that he should go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents, and assured him that it would be prudent to do so, said the Post Office.
The newspaper, quoting people close to the call, said it was not clear whether the prince knew that Khashoggi would be killed, but that he had telephoned the request for his brother.
The prince said in an article published on Twitter on Friday that his last contact with Khashoggi took place by text on October 26, 2017, almost a year before the journalist's death.
"I have never spoken to him by phone, and I have certainly never suggested that he go to Turkey for any reason, and I ask the US government to disclose any information regarding this claim," the statement said. Prince Khaled.
The newspaper added that the CIA had also considered an appeal from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul after the killing of Khashoggi.
Maher Mutreb, a security officer who has often been seen alongside the Crown Prince, has called on Saud al-Qahtani, one of Prince Mohammed's chief aides, to inform him of the end of the war. "Operation," added the Post, quoting relatives in the call.
(Report by Mark Hosenball, additional report by David Alexander and Jeff Mason, edited by Tim Ahmann and Sonya Hepinstall)
