Saudi Arabia said on Saturday tersely that the assassination of critical journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a “tragedy” needless to dwell on it, after US President Joe Biden referred to it during his visit to the monarchy of the Gulf.
Critic of power after being close to it, Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The American intelligence services have pointed the responsibility of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, poisoning relations between Riyadh and Washington.
Nicknamed MBS, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, receiving the American president on Friday, “explained (to Mr. Biden) that this was a tragedy for Saudi Arabia”, according to the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs foreign Adel al-Jubeir. The crown prince assured that “those responsible have been investigated, faced justice and are now paying for the crime,” Mr Jubeir added in an interview with CNN.
Asked about an American intelligence report naming MBS as the sponsor of the operation, the Saudi minister launched: “We know well what the intelligence had concluded about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction”, which did not never existed. The Saudi official also highlighted the “errors” of the United States, citing the case of Abu Ghraib, this Iraqi prison where American soldiers practiced torture and humiliating treatment.
Quoted by the Saudi channel Al-Arabiya, an anonymous Saudi official also assured that the Khashoggi affair had been raised “quickly” during the meeting with Joe Biden, stressing that “such an incident (could) happen anywhere in the world. world”.
A Saudi court in 2020 sentenced eight men to between seven and twenty years in prison for the murder of the journalist.
Ali Shihabi, an expert close to the Saudi government, assured him that the crown prince had responded to Joe Biden by “pointing out the double talk of the Americans, making a lot of noise about Khashoggi while trying to minimize the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh”, American-Palestinian journalist killed in May by Israeli fire according to the UN. “Apart from this frank exchange, the meeting was very cordial,” he assured AFP.
Joe Biden is facing an avalanche of criticism for his meeting with MBS, after promising during his campaign to put human rights at the heart of his diplomacy.
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Saudi Arabia said on Saturday tersely that the assassination of critical journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a ‘tragedy’ needless to dwell on, after US President Joe Biden mentioned it during his visit to the monarchy of the Gulf. Critic of power after having been close to it, Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi consulate…
