Thursday, October 25, 2018

Saudi: It wasn't a fistfight actually

Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor said Thursday that Jamal Khashoggi was killed in a planned operation, citing information received from Turkish investigators in Istanbul, according to a statement from the kingdom’s Foreign Ministry.

It is the latest reversal by Saudi authorities, who last week said Khashoggi was killed accidentally in a fistfight at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul by “rogue” agents.

[...]

Still, neither Trump nor Saudi Arabia has been willing to trace the journalist’s killing to an order by the royal court. U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers as well as the European Union have said that an operation targeting a critic of the royal court in a foreign country is unlikely to have been ordered without the knowledge of senior Saudi officials.

  WaPo
Yeah. By fifteen (or more) Saudis who are connected to the court.
Thursday’s announcement comes days after CIA Director Gina Haspel traveled to Turkey and listened to audio purportedly capturing Khashoggi’s murder, giving a key member of Trump’s Cabinet access to the central piece of evidence Turkey has used to assert that the killing was planned.

It also came two days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a speech calling the slaying “brutal” and “planned” while demanding that the perpetrators be extradited to Turkey.

[...]

In another sign that the kingdom is seeking to contain the widespread fallout, Salah Khashoggi, the eldest son of Jamal Khashoggi, has left Saudi Arabia, two people close to the family said Thursday. The son, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen who was photographed receiving condolences from Salman and Mohammed on Tuesday, previously had been restricted from leaving.

Salah Khashoggi is headed to the United States to join his three siblings, who are already there, according to one of the people.
That is very good news.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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