A senior Saudi prince doubts the CIA found out Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month.
"The CIA is not necessarily the highest standard of truthfulness or accuracy in assessing situations. Examples of this are many, "said Prince Turki al-Faisal, senior member of the royal family, to journalists in Abu Dhabi on Saturday ,.
The prince, a former Saudi intelligence chief who also served as an ambassador to the United States, said the agency concluded that Iraq possessed chemical weapons before the U.S. invasion in 2003 proved that the information they were inaccurate. "This was the most glaring miscalculation, leading to a full-scale war with thousands of casualties," he said, speaking at an event hosted by the Beirut Institute think tank. “I don't understand why the CIA is not on trial in the United States. - commented the Saudi prince - This is my response to their assessment of who is guilty and who is not and who did what to the consulate in Istanbul ”.
The CIA concluded that Prince Mohammed ordered the operation to kill Khashoggi, as reported by the Washington Post, and informed other parts of the US government about his findings, sources told Reuters last week.
A Turkish newspaper also reported Thursday that CIA director Gina Haspel reported to Turkish officials that the agency had recorded a call in which the crown prince gave instructions to "silence" the reporter.
Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 in an operation that Turkish authorities said was ordered by the highest level of Saudi leadership, causing the kingdom's biggest political crisis in a generation.
After offering numerous contradictory explanations, Riyadh said that Khashoggi was killed and his body dismembered after negotiations to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia failed.
The Kingdom prosecutor is demanding the death penalty for five suspects accused of the murder, but said Prince Mohammed had no prior knowledge of the operation.