Washington: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman directly approved of the operation to murder Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, a U.S. intelligence report released Friday says.
The declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said intelligence officials based its assessment on the fact that Mohammed, known commonly by his initials MSB, has “control of decision making” in the kingdom.
“Since 2017, the crown prince has had absolute control of the kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the crown prince’s authorization,” the report said.
The report confirms initial assessments made by the CIA in the weeks after Khashoggi’s death, that Mohammed ordered the dissident’s death.
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who lived in Virginia, died Oct. 2, 2018, after he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to pick up documents he needed for his pending marriage. He was never observed leaving the building, nor was his body ever found.
