Khashoggi murdered on my watch, Saudi prince says

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince says he bears ‘all responsibility’ for the journalist’s murder.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Picture: AP

Saudi Arabia’s controversial crown prince has said that he bears “all the responsibility” for the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to his first interview with western media since the killing.

However, Prince Mohammed bin Salman continued to deny knowing of the murder in advance, blaming officials instead, according to quotes from a partial transcript released before the interview is aired next week. They leave it ambiguous as to how much blame he is prepared to accept.

“It happened under my watch,” he says. “I get all the responsibility, because it happened under my watch.”

The murder a year ago of Khashoggi, a former insider who had edited newspapers and acted as spokesman for Saudi Arabia in London and Washington, stunned the world and brought a PR campaign promoting the kingdom’s modernisation plans to a halt.

Jamal Khashoggi. Picture: AP

Khashoggi had been critical of the crown prince, who rose to power after his father, King Salman, ascended the throne in 2015, and had gone into self-imposed exile in the US. He was killed on October 2 last year by Saudi intelligence and security officers sent to Istanbul, where he was about to set up home with his Turkish fiancee.

In the interview, part of a documentary made by the American PBS network, the prince is asked how a squad could have been sent in government aircraft without his knowledge.

“We have 20 million people — we have three million government employees,” he says. “I have officials, ministers to follow things, and they’re responsible. They have the authority to do that.”

Both the circumstances and the brutality of the killing shocked Saudi Arabia’s allies in London and Washington. The authorities in Riyadh attempted to deny all knowledge of Khashoggi’s disappearance for two weeks, despite leaks by Turkey of recordings from the consulate purporting to reveal that he had been drugged and dismembered.

Eventually Saudi Arabia said that the killing had been carried out by a hit squad whose attempts to persuade Khashoggi to return home had “turned into a brawl”. Eleven of those involved have been put on trial, although there has been no conclusion.

The US has pressed for the arrest of Saud al-Qahtani, the crown prince’s close aide who is said to have overseen the killing and been in direct touch with the hit squad. He has not been seen in public for months, although rumours that he has himself been murdered have been largely discounted.

The CIA is said to believe that the action against Khashoggi was ordered personally by the prince, widely known by his initials, MBS.

The Times