Saudi Crown Prince Approves Murder of Journalist Khashojji: US Report

A report by the US Intelligence Department has found that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Mohammed had approved the killing of Jamal Khashojji, a Saudi journalist living in exile.

The Biden administration on Friday released an intelligence report stating that the Saudi Crown Prince had given his consent to the plan under which it was decided to either capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashojji living in the US.The US has directly named the Saudi Crown Prince for the murder of Khashojji for the first time, although the Saudi Crown Prince has denied that he ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashojji.

In the year 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashojji was murdered inside the Istanbul Saudi Consulate when he went inside the Consulate to get some of his personal documents."We assess that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul that was intended to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashojji," the US report said.In 2018 itself, the US intelligence department was fully convinced by the CIA that the Saudi Crown Prince had ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashojji, but never before has the US authorities publicly stated that Prince Mohammed bin Salman was killed in Khashojji's murder. Were included.

It is believed that the new US President Joe Biden will adopt a stronger policy towards human rights and the rule of law in Saudi Arabia than his predecessor Donald Trump.

How was Khashojji murdered?

In October 2018, the 59-year-old Saudi journalist went to the office of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul where he was supposed to take some of his personal documents. Based on those documents, he could marry his Turkish fiancée Hatije Jengziz. It is believed that the Crown Prince's brother Prince Khalid bin Salman assured him that it would be perfectly safe to go to the Saudi consulate office in Turkey.Prince Khalid was then the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the US. However, Prince Khalid refuses to believe that he had any contact with the journalist Khashoji.

According to Saudi Arabian prosecutors, after the initial conflict, Khushoji was given a large amount of drugs and died due to drug overdoses.His dead body was then torn to pieces and his body was given to a local source outside the Saudi embassy. However, the body of Khashojji has not been found till date.

The Turkish intelligence department claimed to have an audio recording of the conversation that took place during the massacre, and then it was Turkey who made this audio clip public, after which people came to know about it.