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Saudi Arabia calls Khashoggi killing 'grave mistake', says prince not aware


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Saudi Arabia calls Khashoggi killing 'grave mistake', says prince not aware

By Doina Chiacu and Kylie MacLellan

 

2018-10-21T181432Z_2_LYNXNPEE9K0IJ_RTROPTP_4_SAUDI-POLITICS-DISSIDENT.JPG

Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi speaks at an event hosted by Middle East Monitor in London, Britain, September 29, 2018. Picture taken September 29, 2018. Middle East Monitor/Handout via REUTERS

 

WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Sunday called the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at its Istanbul consulate a "huge and grave mistake", but sought to shield its powerful crown prince from the widening crisis, saying Mohammed bin Salman had not been aware.

 

The comments from Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir were some of the most direct yet from Riyadh, which has given multiple and conflicting accounts about Khashoggi's killing on Oct.2, first denying his death before admitting it on Saturday amid an international outcry.

 

The kingdom's weeks of denial and lack of credible evidence in the face of allegations from Turkish officials that Khashoggi had been killed have shaken global confidence in ties with the world's top oil exporter, Western governments say.

 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia's admission that the Washington Post columnist had been killed in a fistfight was a "good first step but not enough", though he added it was premature to discuss any sanctions against Riyadh.

 

Three major European powers - Germany, Britain and France - pressed Saudi Arabia to provide facts to back up its earlier explanation of a fight, while Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany would not export arms to Saudi Arabia while the current uncertainty over Khashoggi's fate persisted.

 

Speaking to U.S. broadcaster Fox, Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, extended condolences to Khashoggi's family.

 

"This is a terrible mistake. This is a terrible tragedy. Our condolences go out to them. We feel their pain," he said. "Unfortunately, a huge and grave mistake was made and I assure them that those responsible will be held accountable for this."

 

He said the Saudis did not know how Khashoggi, a Saudi national and U.S. resident, had been killed or where his body was. He also said that Prince Mohammed, defacto ruler of Saudi Arabia, was not responsible.

 

"This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had. They made the mistake when they killed Jamal Khashoggi in the consulate and they tried to cover up for it."

 

Khashoggi went missing after entering the consulate to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage.

 

After denying any involvement in the 59-year-old's disappearance for two weeks, Saudi Arabia on Saturday said Khashoggi, a critic of the crown prince, had died during a fight in the building. An hour later, another Saudi official attributed the death to a chokehold.

 

"Nothing can justify this killing and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms," Germany, Britain and France said in their joint statement on Sunday.

 

"There remains an urgent need for clarification of exactly what happened ... beyond the hypotheses that have been raised so far in the Saudi investigation, which need to be backed by facts to be considered credible."

 

Reflecting international scepticism over its account, a senior Saudi government official has laid out a new version that in key respects contradicts previous explanations.

 

The latest account includes details on how the team of 15 Saudi nationals sent to confront Khashoggi had threatened him with being drugged and kidnapped and killed him in a chokehold when he resisted. A member of the team dressed in Khashoggi's clothes to make it appear as if he had left the consulate.

 

ERDOGAN TO SPEAK

Turkish officials suspect Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate by the team of Saudi agents and his body cut up. Turkish sources say the authorities have an audio recording purportedly documenting Khashoggi's murder inside the consulate.

 

In a speech on Sunday, Erdogan appeared to suggest that he was getting ready to release some information about the Turkish investigation, and would do so at his weekly speech to members of his ruling AK Party in parliament.

 

He has remained largely silent on the case, although Turkey's pro-government newspapers have released information detailing a 15-member team that purportedly arrived in Istanbul to confront Khashoggi at the consulate.

 

"I will make my statements about this issue on Tuesday at the party group meeting," Erdogan said.

 

For Saudi Arabia's allies - particularly in the West - the question will be whether they believe that the prince, who has painted himself as a reformer, has any culpability. King Salman, 82, had handed the day-to-day running of Saudi Arabia to him.

 

"I am not satisfied until we find the answer. But it was a big first step, it was a good first step. But I want to get to the answer," U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters this weekend, when asked about the Saudi investigation and Riyadh's subsequent firing of Saudi officials over the incident.

 

In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said that "obviously there's been deception, and there's been lies".

 

His Treasury Secretary, Mnuchin, said he would not attend a Saudi investment conference on Tuesday, although he would still visit Riyadh as planned for talks with his counterpart there on joint efforts to counter terrorist financing.

 

A leading Republican U.S. senator said he believed the crown prince was behind the killing, adding that the Saudis had lost all credibility in their explanations of his death.

 

"Yes, I think he did it," Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview with CNN.

 

SHIFTING NARRATIVE

Saudi Arabia's account of the incident has changed multiple times. The authorities initially dismissed reports that Khashoggi had gone missing inside the consulate as false and said he had left the building soon after entering. When the media reported a few days later that he had been killed there, they called the accusations "baseless".

 

King Salman ordered the dismissal of five officials, including Saud al-Qahtani, a royal court adviser seen as the right-hand man to Prince Mohammed, and deputy intelligence chief Ahmed Asiri, Saudi state media reported on Saturday.

 

The king also ordered a restructuring of the intelligence service, to be led by Prince Mohammed, suggesting the prince still retained wide-ranging authority.

 

Some governments and prominent executives have said they would pull out of a forthcoming investment conference in Saudi Arabia.

 

Among the latest, the government of New Zealand said it would not attend, as did the head of the main banking unit of Japanese financial group MUFG.

 

According to the senior Saudi official, the Saudi team rolled up Khashoggi's body in a rug, took it out in a consular vehicle and handed it to a "local cooperator" for disposal.

 

Turkish investigators are likely to find out what happened to the corpse "before long", a senior Turkish official said on Saturday.

 

(Additional reporting by Thomas Escritt in Berlin; Kylie MacLellan in London, Laurence Frost in Paris, Taiga Uranaka in Tokyo, Praveen Menon in Wellington, Doina Chiacu in Washington, Omer Berberoglu and Yesim Dikmen in Istanbul; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

 
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-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-10-22
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1 hour ago, webfact said:

Saudi Arabia's account of the incident has changed multiple times.

Not just one lie but several!  What about all those security officials seen arriving and departing from Turkey at the exact time this 'mistake' was taking place? So far they have done nothing but insult the intelligence of the worlds political leaders. Do they really think anyone believes this rubbish or are they just competing with the US for the alternative facts trophy.

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They got too big for their britches with their oil billions and thought they could torture, murder and butcher the victim in another country without any repercussions.  Seems they can only do that in their own country.  Now, they are trying to clean it up.  Some members of the murder/torture squad will have to "take one for the team" , methinks. 

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2 hours ago, manarak said:

Sure, I am sure everybody believes that...

:coffee1:

Nobody will believe that, but in the end it will be accepted and everything will return to normal. Only the prince's image will be dented, and he will have to be more careful.

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10 hours ago, Lungstib said:

Not just one lie but several!  What about all those security officials seen arriving and departing from Turkey at the exact time this 'mistake' was taking place? So far they have done nothing but insult the intelligence of the worlds political leaders. Do they really think anyone believes this rubbish...

No.

 

They know you know it's bullshit. It's not to convince you or me.

 

It's to give people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos - who both kissed MBS' ring when he was last in the US - and Trump/the USA arms businesses, etc. - an out when everything goes back to business as usual.

 

Perhaps MBS will turn on his henchmen and have a few killed without a trial, to give the USA's (and the world's) 1% a further out.

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This is beginning t be a farce. The newspaper that gets all the leaks in Turkey has just claimed that MbS spoke on the phone with Kashoggi in the consulate just before he was murdered. They claim MbS tried to persuade him to return to Saudi and Kashoggi said no.

I think Erdogan is playing a blinder here. he has kept the story alive with a steady flow of astonishing leaks. The news cycle would normally have moved on by now, but he just keeps the leaks coming, drip by drip. 

If the report is true (and everything else coming out has been true) then MbS is directly impacted and has been caught in an outright lie. 

Thinking about this.....assuming Erdogan has an audio tape, I could not understand why he repeated only a 3 minute portion.....but supposing there are some minutes before the portion released which recorded Kashoggi on the phone with MbS.

Erdogan is also sticking his fingers in US eyes if this is true. Pompeo was sent to Turkey to find out exactly what the Turks knew, but they wouldn't let him listen to the full tape...meaning that Trump didn't know how to react when the story about the fist fight broke. 

This is fascinating stuff. Personally I think Erdogan is going to come into huge sums of money soon and that MbS will survive.

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I'd wager the Americans knew the day Khashoggi was murdered what really happened in the Saudi Embassy but we're horrified at the implications regards the oil and arms money involved.

It's no surprise that the US Ambassador to the UN resigned the day after the murder as she has future plans, would have been party to all the US bs and can't be seen to be going along with and justifying it.

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An Eye for an Eye .........

pull the plug on Saudi Arabia NOW, do not buy any oil from them for, say, the next six to nine months to teach these fidels a definite lesson. Also dont export anything to Saudi Arabia.
The world should withdraw their ambassadors "for consultations"; all those who travelled on diplomatic passports to be named "personae non grata". 
This might be the only way to teach the King that his renegade little sunshine of a murderous son is nothing but a spoilt brat from the Millennials crowd.

It will take a momentous shift to get Saudi Arabia into the 3rd millennium, and the opportunities are rare and far between. But it cannot be accepted that a state orders a hit, irrespective of state - as the people should be the state (except quite obviously Saudi Arabia still, that is)! Wishful thinking, I know but I would be willing to pay more for the petrol for a while just to have my government to teach these camelists a lesson for life! 

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5 hours ago, webfact said:

He said the Saudis did not know how Khashoggi, a Saudi national and U.S. resident, had been killed or where his body was. He also said that Prince Mohammed, defacto ruler of Saudi Arabia, was not responsible.

well some Saudi's do as they killed him and disposed of his corpse...

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3 hours ago, JimmyJ said:

No.

 

They know you know it's bullshit. It's not to convince you or me.

 

It's to give people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos - who both kissed MBS' ring when he was last in the US - and Trump/the USA arms businesses, etc. - an out when everything goes back to business as usual.

 

Perhaps MBS will turn on his henchmen and have a few killed without a trial, to give the USA's (and the world's) 1% a further out.

 

Sure thing, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are just the same as Trump and unnamed "USA arms businesses". And, of course, no other country but the US does business with SA.

 

But do go on about BS....

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     Saudi, China, Russia, all have a habit of making people disappear, but the Saudis have really been caught out with undeniable proof, one of the murder squad has already died in an mysterious road accident, probably because he was prepared to spill his guts as to who was behind the hit (but I think most people already know who), next step would be to make the Saudis tell where the body is, which with 14 others, should not be problem to get the whole truth

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25 minutes ago, Sydebolle said:

I would be willing to pay more for the petrol for a while just to have my government to teach these camelists a lesson for life!

I would prefer it if they were made to cut the price. I am paying £1.35 (58THB)a litre of diesel????

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44 minutes ago, Sydebolle said:

An Eye for an Eye .........

pull the plug on Saudi Arabia NOW, do not buy any oil from them for, say, the next six to nine months to teach these fidels a definite lesson. Also dont export anything to Saudi Arabia.
The world should withdraw their ambassadors "for consultations"; all those who travelled on diplomatic passports to be named "personae non grata". 
This might be the only way to teach the King that his renegade little sunshine of a murderous son is nothing but a spoilt brat from the Millennials crowd.

It will take a momentous shift to get Saudi Arabia into the 3rd millennium, and the opportunities are rare and far between. But it cannot be accepted that a state orders a hit, irrespective of state - as the people should be the state (except quite obviously Saudi Arabia still, that is)! Wishful thinking, I know but I would be willing to pay more for the petrol for a while just to have my government to teach these camelists a lesson for life! 

 

I don't see China, Japan, India or South Korea as being really enthusiastic about taking such action. In fact, most countries' response was rather subdued.

 

Posters proclaiming what the World "should do", and their framing of such fantasies in extreme ways are irrelevant.

 

And to think, all this faux outrage over the killing of one person. Don't recall the same vehemence over numerous other tragedies, transgressions and wrongdoings - amounting in far more damage and suffering.

 

But hey, I hear rants are good for bowel movements.

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10 minutes ago, Oziex1 said:

It's OK all will be forgotten and forgiven as the military industrial complexes of the West are not going to stop cashing in on the obscenely rich war mongering barbarians.

 

Russia and Saudi Arabia 'sign $3bn arms deal' as King Salman visit shows how much relations have changed

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-king-salman-visit-saudi-arabia-moscow-vladimir-putin-a7985161.html

 

Closer Ties: China And Saudi Arabia Sign $70 Billion in New Deals

https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/closer-ties-china-and-saudi-arabia-sign-70-billion-in-new-deals/

 

 

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Totally believable explanation (version 3.24/B). I wonder if Khashoggi had to make an appointment to collect the documents he needed from the embassy and if so, how long in advance? There must have surely been notice sufficient to get the hit squad there in time. Quite well organised for a ‘rogue squad’ that seemingly had no personal axe to grind with a journalist. There was one guy who was a bit annoyed at him though.....

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4 minutes ago, Sir Swagman said:

Totally believable explanation (version 3.24/B). I wonder if Khashoggi had to make an appointment to collect the documents he needed from the embassy and if so, how long in advance? There must have surely been notice sufficient to get the hit squad there in time. Quite well organised for a ‘rogue squad’ that seemingly had no personal axe to grind with a journalist. There was one guy who was a bit annoyed at him though.....

He was told to come on that day at that time on his first visit to the consulate 4 days prior.

 

Turkish tv showed footage of the black van practising driving in from the narrow street the day prior to his killing.

 

The clean up team (the second plane) flew in around the same time as he was killed.

 

The current Saudi line of retreat according to their ever-changing story is that officials exceeded their authority.

 

Let's see if the Turkish side feels it necessary and in their interest to release some more evidence to push the Saudis back to another schoolboy lie.

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