California: United States President Donald Trump said that an intelligence report on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi would be out “over the next two days.”
Speaking to reporters after overseeing rescue operations in California, which was recently ravaged by massive wildfires, Trump said, “It’s a horrible thing that took place, the killing of a journalist. We’ll be having a very full report over the next two days, probably Monday or Tuesday.”
The Washington Post on Friday first reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Khashoggi at the Turkish consulate in Istanbul.
Reacting to the above reports, the US State Department on Saturday said that Washington did not reach a final conclusion over Khashoggi’s killing, terming it as “inaccurate”.
“Recent reports indicating that the US government has made a final conclusion are inaccurate,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert was quoted by Al-Jazeera as saying.
Earlier this week, after listening to the Khashoggi audio tapes, American intelligence officials found strong evidence that allegedly link Prince Salman to Khashoggi’s demise. The New York Times reported that shortly after the scribe’s murder, a member of the team that was sent to conduct the crime, was heard instructing a superior over the phone to ‘tell your boss”.
While the name of the ‘boss’ was never mentioned in the tapes shared by Turkish sources, the CIA officials are considering this instruction as referring to the Saudi Prince that the operatives had successfully carried out their mission. Saudi officials have denied such accusations, saying they had no knowledge about the tapes.
US officials believe and have repeatedly stated that there was Saudi Crown Prince’s hand over the murder of The Washington Post columnist.
The Trump administration also recently slapped sanctions on 17 Saudi nationals, for their alleged involvement in Khashoggi’s killing.
On October 2, Khashoggi was reported missing after he stepped into Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to collect paperwork that would allow him to get married to his Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz, who later said that he never appeared from the building.
After days of denial, Saudi Arabia later confirmed its role in Khashoggi’s killing, after facing massive pressure from Turkey over their investigations on the issue. But their contradictory statements has led to an international uproar led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has demanded Riyadh to come clean and accept their role in the scribe’s death.
Investigations into the Khashoggi’s death continue both at Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as the journalist’s body is yet to be traced.
Khashoggi, who relocated to the US from Saudi Arabia last year, used to write articles for The Washington Post criticising the Saudi government.