WASHINGTON | Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “validated” the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, US intelligence services said in a report released Friday.
“We have come to the conclusion that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman has validated an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” writes the National Intelligence Directorate in this short declassified document of four pages.
“The Crown Prince considered Khashoggi a threat to the kingdom and more broadly supported the use of violent measures if necessary to silence him,” she added.
The report emphasizes that the Crown Prince had had “absolute control” of the kingdom’s intelligence and security services since 2017, “making it very unlikely that Saudi officials could have carried out such an operation without fire. Prince’s green ”.
The American intelligence services also suppose that, at the time of the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, Mohammed ben Salman created a climate such that his collaborators probably did not dare to question the orders received, “for fear of” be dismissed or arrested ”.