The latest in the Khashoggi saga

Saudi Crown Prince Spoke To Khashoggi By Phone Moments Before He Was Killed: Report

Zero Hedge,

21 October, 2018

In the latest bombshell report involving the Khashoggi murder, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly spoke on the phone with journalist Jamal Khashoggi moments before he was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish pro-government daily Yeni Safak disclosed the new alleged details of the case in a report on Sunday, contradicting claims by Saudi authorities that Prince Mohammed played no part in Khashoggi's murder.

"Khashoggi was detained by the Saudi team inside the consulate building. Then Prince Mohammed contacted Khashoggi by phone and tried to convince him to return to Riyadh," the report said.

"Khashoggi refused Prince Mohammed's offer out of fear he would be arrested and killed if he returned. The assassination team then killed Khashoggi after the conversation ended," it added.

While the report is so far unconfirmed, the New Arab reports that so far Turkish pro-government media have been receiving a steady stream of leaks many of which turned out to be accurate, including pictures of the hit team as they entered Turkey and reports of audio recordings of the murder said to be in the possession of Turkish authorities.

Meanwhile, the Saudi version of events has been changing significantly over the past two weeks with authorities conceded Saturday that Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and a Riyadh critic, was killed inside the kingdom's Istanbul diplomatic compound following a "brawl". The admission came after a fortnight of denials with the insistence that the journalist left the consulate alive, starting on October 5, when Crown Prince MBS told Bloomberg that Khashoggi was not inside the consulate and "we are ready to welcome the Turkish government to go and search our premises".

On Saturday, the kingdom announced it had fired five top officials and arrested 18 others in an investigation into the killing - a move that has widely been viewed as an attempt to cover up the crown prince's role in the murder.

The shifting Saudi narrative of the killing has been met with scepticism and condemnation from the international community, and has left the U.S. and other allies struggling for a response on Sunday. As Bloomberg reports, France demanded more information, Germany put arms sales to Riyadh on hold and the Trump administration stressed the vital importance of the kingdom and its economy to the U.S.

In Sunday radio and TV interviews, Dominic Raab, the U.K. politician in charge of negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union, described the latest Saudi account as not credible; French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called for “the truth’’; and Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his government would approve no arms sales so long as the investigation was ongoing.

Earlier on Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir acknowledged a cover-up attempt. The dramatic reversal, after Saudi officials had previously said the columnist left the building alive, has only complicated the issue for allies.

Saudi Arabia’s al-Jubeir told Fox News on Sunday that the journalist’s death was an “aberration.”

“There obviously was a tremendous mistake made and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to cover up,” he said, promising that “those responsible will be punished for it.” 

More importantly, he said that Prince Mohammed had no knowledge of the events, although if the Turkish report is confirmed, it will be yet another major flaw with the official narrative.

Several senior members of US President Donald Trump's Republican Party said they believed Prince Mohammed was linked to the killing, and one called for a "collective" Western response if a link is proved. In an interview with The Washington Post, President Trump, too, said the Saudi narrative had been marked by “deception and lies.’’ Yet he also defended Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a “strong person,’’ and said there was no proof of his involvement in Khashoggi’s death. Some members of Congress have questioned his willingness to exonerate the prince.

"Obviously there's been deception and there's been lies," Trump said on the shifting accounts offered by Riyadh.

On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to disclose details about the case at a meeting of his AK Party’s parliamentary faction on Tuesday, Haberturk newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, as Western firms and high-ranked officials scramble to avoid any Saudi involvement, Russia is more than happy to step in and fill the power vacuum void left by the US. As a result, Russian businesses are flocking to attend the investment forum in Saudi Arabia, as Western counterparts pull out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has had considerable success boosting Moscow’s influence in the Middle East at U.S. expense, by standing by regimes that fall afoul of the West, including in Syria and Iran. Last week Putin signed a strategic and partnership agreement with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, backed by $25 billion in loans to build nuclear reactors. Until El-Sisi came to power, Egypt had been closely allied to the U.S.

Meanwhile, all eyes are fixed squarely on the Crown Prince whose position of power is looking increasingly perilous. Congressional leaders on Sunday dismissed the story proffered earlier by the Saudis, with Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bob Corker of Tennessee saying they believed the crown prince was likely involved in Khashoggi’s death.

Lawmakers said they believe the U.S. must impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia or take other action if the crown prince is shown to have been involved. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, said the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. should be formally expelled until a third-party investigation is done. He said the U.S. should call on its allies to do the same.

“Unless the Saudi kingdom understands that civilized countries around the world are going to reject this conduct and make sure that they pay a price for it, they’ll continue doing it,”’ Durbin said.

The obvious question is what happens and how the Saudi royal family will respond if it is pushed too far, and whether the worst case scenario, a sharp cut in oil exports, could be on the table if MBS feels like he has little to lose from escalating the situation beyond a point of no return.

Crown prince was unaware of Khashoggi's death, Saudi foreign minister says

"There obviously was a tremendous mistake made, and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to try to cover up," the official said.

Saudi Arabia said Sunday that it had formally apologized to the family of the slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, even as its foreign minister called his killing at a consulate in Istanbul "a rogue operation" and denied that the kingdom's crown prince or intelligence service had any prior knowledge of the operation.

"This was an operation that was a rogue operation," the official, Adel al-Jubeir, told Fox News on Sunday. "This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had."

Jubeir said neither Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman nor "the senior leadership of our intelligence service" was aware of what had happened to Khashoggi.

"There obviously was a tremendous mistake made, and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to try to cover up," he said, adding, "That is unacceptable in any government."

The official Saudi Press Association reported that Crown Prince Mohammed called Kashoggi's eldest son, Salah Khashoggi, to express his condolences. Jubeir said Saudi Arabia wanted to make sure "those who are responsible are punished, and we want to make sure that we have procedures in place that prevent it from happening again."

Jubeir also said the Saudis did not know the details of how Khashoggi was killed or where his body is. He added that an investigating team in Turkey found evidence contradicting earlier reports that Khashoggi left the consulate after his visit Oct. 2.

According to Jubeir, the prosecutor determined "that the reports that were originally filed were wrong and that there was something that happened that was criminal."

The remarks came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that he would reveal more about the investigation on Tuesday. The White House said Erdogan and President Donald Trump discussed the case in a telephone call on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia finally acknowledged on Friday that Khashoggi had been killed at the consulate, although the explanation that a "quarrel and fighting by hand" led to his death has been met with international skepticism

Trump offered sharper criticism of Saudi Arabia's explanation on Saturday evening, telling The Washington Post: "Obviously, there's been deception, and there's been lies."

But he continued to defend the nation as an "incredible ally" and allowed for the possibility that Khashoggi's death was not directly ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed.

A Trump ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on Fox News that he did not think the Saudis' explanation was "credible at all."

"It's ridiculous to believe 18 people would go to Turkey to kill Mr. Khashoggi and nobody in the government know about it," he said.