The President of the United States, Donald Trump, received the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman (known as MBS), at the White House on Tuesday (18) and said that he “knew nothing” about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
According to information from the Reuters agency, in a conversation with the press in the Oval Office of the White House, a reporter asked about Khashoggi’s murder and Trump called the journalist “fake news”.
“A lot of people didn’t like this gentleman you’re talking about [Khashoggi]. Whether you like him or not, things happen, but he [MBS] I didn’t know anything. And we can stop here. You don’t need to embarrass our guest with a question like that,” said the American president.
MBS, who has always denied involvement in the crime, said that the case was “painful for us in Saudi Arabia”.
“We followed all the correct investigation procedures in Saudi Arabia and improved our system to ensure nothing like this happened. It is heartbreaking and it was a big mistake. We are doing everything we can to ensure this does not happen again,” the crown prince said.
Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist critical of the kingdom of Riyadh and in October 2018 he was killed in the Arab country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. After being strangled, his body was dismembered and dissolved in acid, according to Turkish authorities.
The month after his death, the CIA under the first Trump administration concluded that MBS ordered Khashoggi’s murder.
In the same month, the United States Treasury Department applied sanctions via the Magnitsky Act against 17 Saudi Arabian citizens accused of participating in the journalist’s death. Among those sanctioned was Saud al-Qahtani, then an advisor to MBS.
Saudi Arabia is, alongside Israel, the US’s main partner in the Middle East and Trump is trying to bring Riyadh into the Abraham Accords, through which Muslim countries have normalized relations with the Israelis.
This Tuesday, MBS said that Saudi Arabia wants “to be part of the Abraham Accords, but we also want to make sure that we are following a clear path to a two-state solution,” he said, in reference to the creation of a Palestinian State, a condition imposed by Riyadh to adhere to the commitment.
