Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said that he bears responsibility for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year by Saudi Arabian operatives, “because it happened under my watch,” according to a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentary to be broadcast next week.
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, has not spoken publicly about the killing inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
The CIA and some Western governments have said that he ordered it, but Saudi Arabian officials have said that he had no role.
The death sparked a global uproar, tarnishing the crown prince’s image and imperiling ambitious plans to diversify the economy of the world’s top oil exporter and open up its cloistered society.
He has not visited the US or Europe since.
“It happened under my watch. I get all the responsibility, because it happened under my watch,” he told PBS’ Martin Smith, according to a preview of the documentary, The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, which is to air on Tuesday next week, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Khashoggi’s death.
After initial denials, the official Saudi Arabian narrative blamed the murder on rogue operatives.
The public prosecutor said that the then-deputy intelligence chief ordered the repatriation of Khashoggi, a royal insider who became an outspoken critic, but the lead negotiator ordered him killed after discussions for his return failed.
Saud al-Qahtani, a former top royal adviser whom Reuters reported gave orders over Skype to the killers, briefed the hit team on Khashoggi’s activities before the operation, the prosecutor said.
Asked how the killing could happen without him knowing about it, Smith quotes Prince Mohammed as saying: “We have 20 million people. We have 3 million government employees.”
Smith asked whether the killers could have taken private government jets, to which the crown prince responded: “I have officials, ministers to follow things and they’re responsible. They have the authority to do that.”
Smith describes the exchange in December last year, which apparently took place off camera, in the preview of the documentary.
A senior US administration official in June said that the administration of US President Donald Trump was pressing Riyadh for “tangible progress” toward holding to account those behind the killing.
Eleven Saudi Arabian suspects have been put on trial in secretive proceedings, but only a few hearings have been held.
A UN report has called for the prince and other senior Saudi Arabian officials to be investigated.
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was last seen at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, last year, where he was to receive papers ahead of his wedding.
His body was reportedly dismembered and removed from the building, and his remains have not been found.
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