‘Khashoggi case painful, justice will prevail’

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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman speaking on Wednesday during a session of the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh. Photo: AFP

RIYADH, Oct 24, (Agencies): Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday said the case of the slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was “painful”, and “justice will prevail”.

The crown prince said all culprits will be punished, and Saudi Arabia and Turkey will work together “to reach results.” Prince Mohammed bin Salman, meanwhile, said the Kingdom will continue with reforms and spending on infrastructure, predicting the economy will grow by 2.5 percent this year.

Speaking at an investment conference in Riyadh, he said the Kingdom will press ahead with a war on terrorism. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday discussed steps to “shed light” on the murder of Khashoggi, in their first telephone conversation since the killing, a presidential source said. Erdogan has so far spoken twice on the phone with Saudi King Salman since Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor and Riyadh critic, was killed inside the Saudi consulate on Oct 2, which he had visited to obtain documents for his marriage to a Turkish woman.

But Wednesday’s telephone conversation was the first time he has spoken to the crown prince, known as MBS, who is seen as the driving force in dayto- day rule of the Kingdom. The two discussed “the issue of joint efforts and the steps that need to be taken in order to shed light on the Jamal Khashoggi murder in all its aspects,” the source added.

The phone call was at the request of the prince, the presidential source noted. After more than two weeks of vehement denials, Saudi Arabia asserted Saturday that the journalist was killed in a “brawl and fist fight” inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul – without revealing the whereabouts of his body.

Erdogan has never directly blamed Riyadh for the killing but vowed that Turkey would not allow the culprits to get away with the “savage murder”. “We are determined not to allow any cover up of this murder and for all those responsible – from those who gave the command to those who executed it – not to escape justice,” he said on Wednesday. President Donald Trump described the killing of Khashoggi as a botched operation and a “bad original concept” as his administration took its first, careful steps toward punishing the Saudis by moving to revoke the visas of the suspects. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the entire operation was a fiasco.

“They had a very bad original concept,” Trump said on Tuesday. “It was carried out poorly, and the cover-up was one of the worst cover-ups in the history of cover-ups. Somebody really messed up, and they had the worst cover-up ever.”

Even in the face of ugly details of Khashoggi’s slaying, Trump has resisted calls to cut off arms sales to the Kingdom and has been reluctant to antagonize the Saudi rulers. Trump considers the Saudis to be vital allies in his Mideast agenda. Members of Congress have demanded that sanctions be imposed on Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi, who lived in self-imposed exile in the US and wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The writer, who was a contributor to The Washington Post, vanished Oct 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Turkey, where he went to pick up documents for his marriage to his Turkish fiancée. Turkish officials say that a Saudi team of 15 men tortured, killed and dismembered the writer and that Saudi officials had planned the killing for days. Saudi officials – after weeks of denials – now concede that he died, but they say it happened accidentally in a fight at the consulate. “It was a total fiasco,” Trump said.

“The process was no good. The execution was no good. And the cover-up, if you want to call it that, was certainly no good.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the move to revoke visas was just a first step. Visa records are confidential and Pompeo was not more specific about who the revocations would affect, but the State Department later said 21 “Saudi suspects” would have visas revoked or would be declared ineligible to enter the US.

“These penalties will not be the last word on this matter,” Pompeo told reporters at the State Department. The administration “will continue to hold those responsible accountable. We’re making very clear that the United States does not tolerate this kind of ruthless action to silence Mr Khashoggi, a journalist, with violence,” he said.

“Neither the president or I are happy with this situation.” Still, Pompeo stressed the strategic importance of the US-Saudi relationship. “We continue to view as achievable the twin imperative of protecting America and holding accountable those responsible for the killing of Mr Khashoggi,” Pompeo said.

Turkish intelligence has shared “all the evidence” over the murder of Khashoggi with the CIA chief during a visit, pro-government media reported on Wednesday. CIA Director Gina Haspel visited the Turkish capital Ankara on Tuesday for talks with officials about the killing of Washington Post contributor Khashoggi inside Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate.

Video images and audio tapes as well as evidence gathered from the consulate and the consul’s residence were shared with Haspel during the briefing at the Turkish Intelligence Organisation (MIT), Sabah newspaper reported.

Turkish President Erdogan has stopped short of pointing the blame at the Saudi leadership for the death of the Saudi insider-turned-critic. But he said in a keynote speech on Tuesday that the murder was meticulously planned, demanding that all those involved brought to justice. The whereabouts of Khashoggi’s corpse still remain unknown. The 59-year-old vanished on Oct 2 after entering the Saudi mission to obtain documents for his wedding.

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