Trump: "there is no smoking gun", bin Salman is a personal friend of mine
According to a classified report produced by the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent at least eleven text messages to the man in charge of the 15-member squad that shot journalist Jamal Khashoggi to death.
The CIA report was given to the Wall Street Journal, which revealed in an important article on Saturday that the Saudi king had sent the messages in the previous hours and after the brutal killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, the 2 October 2018.
Khashoggi, 59, was a Saudi government advisor who moved to the United States and became a fiery critic of the kingdom's style of government. He was killed and later dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone on a scheduled visit in order to issue a document for divorce from his ex-wife in Saudi Arabia.
At the end of last month, the British CIA and MI6 concluded their investigation by charging Prince Salman for Khashoggi's murder. But US President Donald Trump and some members of his cabinet, including secretaries of state Mike Pompeo and defense James Mattis, have contested these claims, saying there is "no smoking gun" to prove Prince Salman's involvement. .
The US president said Saudi Arabia is Washington's "great ally" and that Prince Salman's role in Khashoggi's murder is unclear. "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't," he told reporters in Washington on November 20, referring to the prince, whom he considers a personal friend. Instead, the White House blamed the journalist's murder on Saud al-Qahtani, a former adviser to the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who is believed to have coordinated Khashoggi's murder.
But the new CIA report on Khashoggi's murder is very reliable and believes that Prince Salman "personally targeted" the journalist and "probably ordered his death." The report, The Journal said, is based on several findings, including the fact that the prince sent at least 11 messages to al-Qahtani in the hours immediately preceding and immediately after the team killed Khashoggi in Istanbul. The CIA report states that the Agency did not have access to the content of the texts, however it states that this model of communication, along with other pieces of evidence "would appear to give credence to the Saudi operation against Khashoggi".