Treasury Department Sanctions Saudi Officials In Response To Killing Of Jamal Khashoggi

Saudi prosecutors say they're seeking the death penalty for high-ranking officials linked to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. But they stop short of blaming the Kingdom's powerful crown prince.</s>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor said Thursday he’s seeking the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

The disclosures by the prosecution appear aimed at distancing the killers and their operation from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose decision-making powers have thrust him into the center of a global outcry over the killing.

Chief Saudi prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb’s decision to seek the death penalty before trial is not unusual in Saudi Arabia.

Facing mounting international pressure, prosecutors also pointed the finger at two men who were part of the crown prince’s inner circle, but stopped short of accusing them of ordering a hit on Khashoggi. The two are instead being accused of ordering Khashoggi’s forced return in an operation the Saudis allege went awry.

In a press conference later Thursday, Sheikh Shalan al-Shalan, spokesman and deputy attorney-general, said the Oct. 2 killing was ordered by one man: the individual responsible for the negotiating team sent to forcibly bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia.

He did not disclose that individual’s name, but said he was part of a 15-man team sent to Turkey comprised of three groups: negotiators, intelligence and logistics.

He said that on the morning of the killing, the leader of the negotiating team saw that he would not be able to force Khashoggi to return “so he decided to kill him in the moment.”

This appears to contradict a previous Saudi statement quoting Turkish intelligence saying the killing had been premeditated.

Al-Shalan said that Khashoggi’s killers had set in motion plans for the operation on Sept. 29 — three days before his slaying in Istanbul. He says the killers drugged and killed the writer inside the consulate, before dismembering the body and handing it over for disposal by an unidentified local collaborator. The body has never been found.

The brutal death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who had been critical of the crown prince, has sent shock waves around the world and led analysts and officials to believe a sensitive operation of this magnitude could not have been carried out without the prince’s knowledge.

Hours after the prosecutor’s announcement, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters the crown prince had “absolutely” nothing to do with the killing.

“His royal highness the crown prince has nothing to do with this issue,” he said.

Al-Jubeir said the kingdom is investigating and holding those responsible to account “to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“Sometimes mistakes happen … sometimes people exceed their authority,” he said.

The latest Saudi account of what took place failed to appease officials in Turkey, who insist the killing and its cover-up were carried out by the highest levels of government.

“We did not find some of his explanations to be satisfactory,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said after the Saudi announcement.

“Those who gave the order, the real perpetrators need to be revealed. This process cannot be closed down in this way,” he added.

Through a series of orchestrated leaks, including audio of the killing shared with Western intelligence, Turkey has attempted to keep pressure on the crown prince, who sees Turkey as a regional rival.

Turkey alleges that among those sent to Istanbul was a forensics expert.

In an apparent reference this specialist, al-Shalan said the organizer of the operation — who was not named — called on a specialist to be part of the team to erase evidence if Khashoggi needed to be forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors said this specialist was working without the direct knowledge of his boss.

Saudi Arabia said 21 people are now in custody, with 11 indicted and referred to trial. The Turkish government is demanding the suspects be investigated and put on trial in Turkey.

Among the high-level officials incriminated in connection with the killing is former deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri, who was fired in the immediate aftermath of the killing.

Al-Assiri, believed to have been a close confidant of Prince Mohammed, and former royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani are accused of planning and ordering Khashoggi’s forced return to Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors say the men formed a 15-man Saudi team to carry out the operation.

Saudi prosecutors said the men deemed Khashoggi a threat because of his work as a writer and because he was allegedly backed by groups and countries that are hostile to Saudi Arabia.

However, Saudi prosecutors stopped short of accusing al-Assiri or al-Qahtani of ordering the killing itself — further distancing the killers from the crown prince’s inner circle and bolstering Saudi assertions that the killing was carried out by rogue agents who exceeded their authority. Both men were fired from their posts last month amid fallout from the killing.

Khashoggi had been living in self-imposed exile abroad for nearly a year before he was killed by Saudi agents at the consulate on Oct. 2. In his writing, he was especially critical of the crown prince, who’d been leading a wide-reaching crackdown on activists and critics inside the kingdom since last year.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage. His Turkish fiancee waited outside and first raised the alarm about his disappearance.</s>
• A former CIA case officer and intelligence analyst said the Trump administration is helping the Saudi Crown Prince cover up journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.
• Bob Baer, who worked as a CIA case officer primarily in the Middle East, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the US has purposely muted its response to Khashoggi’s murder, despite mounting evidence – including audio recordings – that some suggest implicates the Saudi Crown Prince.
• Turkish and US officials, including US National Security Adviser John Bolton, have said that the audio does not conclusively link the killing to Prince Mohammed. But Baer suggested it is unlikely that anyone else in the Kingdom would have the authority to order such an operation.
• “The chances that Mohammed bin Salman ordered this, we’re hitting 100%,” Baer said.
• The Trump administration, by all appearances, is unsure of how to proceed in its response to Khashoggi’s murder; while officials have been promising to clamp down hard with possible sanctions, little meaningful action has been taken.

A former CIA case officer and intelligence analyst for CNN claimed the Trump administration is helping the Saudis cover up Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.

Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday, Bob Baer, who worked at a CIA case officer primarily in the Middle East, said the US has purposely muted its response to journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.

“We’ve always turned a blind eye to what’s going on in Saudi Arabia,” he told CNN Tuesday.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor and US resident, was murdered after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly shifted its version of the events that transpired that day, and it has fired five top officials and arrested 18 Saudis it says are connected to the killing.

Still, Khashoggi’s body has not been returned, and audio recordings circulating around government agencies appear to indicate that that someone senior, possibly Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had ordered the killing.

According to The New York Times, the tape allegedly records Khashoggi’s last moments, and catches one of his killers call his superior on the phone and tell the person to “tell your boss” that “the deed was done.“

“The way Saudi Arabia is run today, Mohammed bin Salman is an autocrat,” Baer said. “Security services, the rest of the country, he’s in control.”

While Turkish and US officials, including US National Security Adviser John Bolton, have said that the audio does not conclusively implicate Prince Mohammed, Baer suggested it is unlikely that anyone else in the Kingdom would have the authority to order such an operation. Bolton has said he has not heard the tape himself.

“The Saudis do not have rogue operations ever,” Baer said. “It’s never occured. The chances that Mohammed bin Salman ordered this, we’re hitting 100%.”

The Trump administration, by all appearances, is unsure of how to proceed in its response to Khashoggi’s murder; while officials have been promising to clamp down hard with possible sanctions against senior Saudi leaders, little action has been taken, likely due to the deep economic ties between Washington and Riyadh.

“At this point, the White House doesn’t see a way out. Saudi Arabia is a volcano and to try and push the Crown Prince out, we don’t have any players [in Saudi Arabia] on our side, so we don’t know what to do,” Baer said. “So we have a psychopath sitting in Riyadh controlling the country.”

Prince Mohammed has tightened his grip in the last year since being appointed Crown Prince last June at the age of 31. His massive purge of more than 200 influential Saudi figures, many of whom were members of the Saudi royal family, silenced dissenting voices and cemented his status as Saudi Arabia’s most powerful figure.

“No Saudi prince has ever done this ever in its history,” Baer said. “I think what worries the White House is this country could pop, and what would we do then?”</s>The United States sanctioned 17 Saudi Arabian nationals Thursday in connection with the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The announcement came just hours after Saudi Arabia said it will seek the death penalty for five suspects among 11 charged in the killing of the Washington Post columnist.

Among those sanctioned by the the Treasury Department was Saud Al-Qahtani, a former senior adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The sanctions freeze their U.S. asserts and prohibit Americans from doing business with them.

"The Saudi officials we are sanctioning were involved in the abhorrent killing of Jamal Khashoggi," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. "These individuals who targeted and brutally killed a journalist who resided and worked in the United States must face consequences for their actions. The Government of Saudi Arabia must take appropriate steps to end any targeting of political dissidents or journalists."

Earlier Thursday, Saud Al-Mojeb, the kingdom's top public prosecutor, said the most senior official behind Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. is Ahmad al-Assiri, a former deputy intelligence chief.

Al-Assiri was arrested and fired for ordering Khashoggi's forced return to Saudi Arabia, an operation that Riyadh has tried to characterize as a botched rendition by rogue operatives. Al-Mojeb did not say whether Al-Assiri was facing the death penalty. He said 21 people are in custody and 11 have been indicted in connection with the case.

Protestors hold candles and pictures of Jamal Khashoggi during the demonstration in front of Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Turkey says it has audio evidence that proves the Washington Post columnist's murder was sanctioned at the highest level in Saudi Arabia, likely in coordination with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation's de facto ruler and a close U.S. ally.

On Monday, Canada's Justin Trudeau became the first western leader to confirm that Turkey has shared this evidence with other countries' intelligence agencies. President Donald Trump has acknowledged its existence but has not said whether he's heard it.

The recording was shared last month with the C.I.A. Director Gina Haspel.

However, Al-Mojeb did not address that, and only requested that Turkish authorities release additional information about their investigation. He said Khashoggi's murderers drugged and killed the writer inside the consulate before dismembering the body and handing it over for disposal by an unidentified local collaborator.

Following Al-Mojeb's remarks, Turkey released a statement urging Saudi Arabia to reveal who ordered Khashoggi's killing. It also called the prosecutor's comments "unsatisfactory" and insisted that the suspects be extradited to Turkey for trial.

Khashoggi's remains are unaccounted for more than a month after he entered the consulate to obtain legal documents needed to marry his Turkish fiancee.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said he has pressed the Saudis for answers over the case and told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call that "the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable." The Trump administration has also appeared intent on preserving its relationship with Saudi Arabia's leadership despite the affair.

More: Report: Saudis discussed killing other enemies long before Khashoggi's death</s>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor is recommending the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi Al-Mojeb told journalists in a rare press conference in Riyadh on Thursday that Khashoggi's killers had set in motion plans for the killing on Sept. 29, three days before he was killed inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.

The prosecutor said the highest-level official behind the killing was Saudi former deputy intelligence chief Ahmad al-Assiri, who has been fired for ordering Khashoggi's forced return. The prosecutor made no mention of the man who many have accused of ordering the murder, the Saudi king's son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Al-Assiri is thought to have been very close to the crown prince.

The prosecutor said 21 people were in custody, with 11 indicted and referred to trial.

CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reported on Thursday the Saudi prosecutor also gave the kingdom's first official acknowledgement that Khashoggi's body was dismembered after he was killed inside the consulate -- though that is what Turkish officials have been saying for weeks.

Turkey has blamed the highest ranks of power in Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi's brutal death, saying the kingdom sent an assassination squad for him.

Some in the U.S. intelligence community, and some senior U.S. lawmakers, have said they believe it is not credible to suggest a Saudi operative would have undertaken such a dramatic operation without approval from a top royal family member. Al-Assiri was known to be a close associate of Crown Prince Salman, who is widely suspected of having some role in the killing.

The New York Times first reported on Oct. 19 that al-Assiri could end up getting the blame for the alleged killing. CBS News was able to confirm that Saudi officials were considering blaming al-Assiri for the murder.

According to the Saudi prosecutor, when Khashoggi arrived at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, a fight broke out, and he was roughed up and injected with a high dose of anesthetic which led to his demise. His body was then dismembered and moved outside the consulate building by five of the people in the team sent by al-Assiri.

The team then handed the body over to a local "collaborator" for disposal, the prosecutor said. Turkey has pressed Saudi officials to explain who this local person was, and where the journalist's body is now. Turkish media have said his body was likely dissolved in acid, prompting his widow to ask if his killers were even "human beings."

The prosecutor's statement on Thursday saw the Saudi government again alter it's explanation of Khashoggi's death. Previously officials had said he died as a result of asphyxiation during a "fight" in the consulate. The mention of a drug being administered was new on Thursday, and as Williams reported, it contradicts the previous official Saudi statement that the Washington Post contributor died in a fight.

As Williams noted, it took Saudi Arabia more than two weeks to acknowledge that Khashoggi was even killed, after first issuing angry denials.</s>With a straight face, the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, explained the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to a group of journalists on Thursday by saying, dismissively, “Sometimes mistakes happen.” The kingdom wrapped up its investigation by charging eleven men—five face the death penalty—and offering yet a fourth (or is it now the fifth?) version of the Washington Post columnist’s execution in Istanbul on October 2nd. The Saudis initially claimed that Khashoggi left the Saudi consulate alive. It later admitted that he’d died—but only after he initiated a fistfight and succumbed to a choke hold meant simply to subdue him. At the time, al-Jubeir insisted that Khashoggi’s body had been rolled up in a carpet and taken out of the consulate in one piece. The government later admitted that he’d been dismembered. Now it’s claiming that Khashoggi was tied up and injected with an overdose of a sedative that accidentally killed him.

The announcement generated more questions than answers. The suspects were not named. The kingdom still claims not to know where Khashoggi’s body is, since its agents gave his remains to a “local collaborator” whose name it allegedly does not know. (It said it provided a rough “sketch” to Turkish officials.) It offered no explanation of why one of the fifteen men—the same height and girth as Khashoggi—donned the journalist’s clothing after his death and walked around Istanbul, then switched back to his clothing in a public restroom, after which he tossed what appeared to be Khashoggi’s trousers and jacket into a dumpster. And then there is the inconvenient issue of the bone saw revealed in a security X-ray of the Saudis’ luggage.

The kingdom’s investigation is increasingly becoming a farce. Reading between the lines, the report seemed determined most of all to counter a widespread suspicion that Saudi Arabia’s young de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, or M.B.S. as he’s popularly known, was behind the operation.

“The crown prince had nothing to do with this issue,” al-Jubeir told the press conference, in Riyadh. “The criticism and fierce attacks targeting the kingdom are baseless and illogical.” He pledged that all involved would be punished and then, curiously, added that Saudi agents would not engage in such acts in the future.

Instead of easing scrutiny of the kingdom, the prince’s inner circle is only digging a deeper hole for itself, U.S. congressional officials, former U.S. diplomats, and experts on Saudi Arabia told me. “Given the controlling nature of the regime, it is difficult to imagine that the murder was undertaken without the approval or understanding of senior officials,” James Smith, a former U.S. Ambassador to Riyadh, told me. “Without some degree of transparency, we are left with ‘trust me.’ ”

The Saudi investigation is merely “a poorly done coverup,” Bruce Riedel, a former senior C.I.A. analyst who also served in the White House and the Pentagon, told me. “Their story line is completely implausible—a team of fifteen killers travels to Istanbul where they take charge of a diplomatic facility with no instructions from the Saudi leadership and kill Jamal Khashoggi. The mastermind of the murder is undoubtedly the crown prince, which is why there is a coverup.”

The kingdom wants the actual executioners of the crime “to be seen to be punished,” Gregory Gause, the head of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A. & M., told me. “In terms of determining the culpability of the top levels of the Saudi government, including the Crown Prince, the investigation has zero credibility.”

The Trump Administration, on the other hand, appears willing to buy the latest Saudi story—and even to facilitate it. Within hours of the Saudi announcement, the Treasury Department imposed economic sanctions on seventeen Saudis, including some of the crown prince’s closest advisers. The Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, said that the men had “targeted and brutally killed a journalist who resided and worked in the United States” and must face the consequences for an “abhorrent” murder.

Yet the sanctions will have limited impact—if any—on men already imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. And the Trump Administration was virtually forced to act after Congress, last month, invoked the Magnitsky Act, which requires the White House to impose sanctions for major human-rights violations within a hundred and twenty-days. Gause described the U.S. move as a “minimum response.”

“The Treasury sanctions are mostly symbolic,” Riedel, the author of “Kings and Presidents: Saudi Arabia and the United States Since FDR,” told me. “The Administration is trying desperately to save M.B.S. from the consequences of his poor judgment.”

This week, both Republicans and Democrats have expressed skepticism about the White House’s intentions. “The Administration appears to be following the Saudi playbook of blaming mid-level officials and exonerating its leadership,” Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, where Khashoggi resided after he went into exile last year, said. Ben Cardin, of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged that President Trump is “enabling” the kingdom “in its effort to protect Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from accountability.”

On Wednesday, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, who is often a defender of Trump, said that the powerful prince “has been unstable and unreliable, and I don’t see the situation getting fixed as long as he’s around.” The stakes in unravelling the Khashoggi murder ripple well beyond the desert kingdom and across the wider Middle East. Three of President Trump’s most important foreign-policy strategies—squeezing Iran, an Arab-Israeli peace plan, and containing jihadi extremism—rely on support from Saudi Arabia, and therefore on M.B.S., because he has consolidated control over all the kingdom’s major political, military, and economic decisions.

Since Khashoggi’s murder, the Administration has even explored legal ways to get the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to ease off pressure on Saudi Arabia—and halt the damaging leaks that he has made regarding the case, NBC News reported on Thursday. The White House has considered acceding to Erdoğan’s demand that Washington deport Fethullah Gülen, a popular Turkish cleric who has resided in Pennsylvania since 1999. Once an ally of the Turkish leader, Gülen was blamed by Erdoğan for a coup attempt against him, in 2016. Gülen, whose backers run schools and businesses around the world, denied the charge.

The mood on Capitol Hill, though, is increasingly angry—at both Saudi Arabia and the White House. This week, a bipartisan group of senators proposed punitive legislation on the kingdom. The bill includes a blanket embargo on sales of offensive weapons—munitions, bombs, missiles, aircraft, armored vehicles, and tanks—and use of U.S. aircraft to refuel Saudi warplanes in its three-year-old war on Yemen. The initiative was initiated by Graham, Todd Young, a Republican of Indiana, and Robert Menendez, a Democrat of New Jersey.

In a statement, the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said that the United States would continue to “seek all relevant facts” and work with other nations to investigate Khashoggi’s murder. Yet the Administration has offered few of its own insights into his death since the director of the C.I.A., Gina Haspel, flew to Istanbul last month to be briefed and, among other things, listen to an audio recording of Khashoggi’s death. “The U.S. knows more about this than it is saying,” Gause told me.

Meanwhile, Khashoggi’s son Salah posted a social-media notice on Thursday, saying that the family would begin to “accept condolences” at their father’s home in Jeddah—certain days for men, other days for women, as required in the rigid kingdom. For weeks, Khashoggi’s sons have appealed to the Saudi government to return their father’s body so he could be buried in Medina, his birthplace. That appears increasingly unlikely. A senior adviser to the Turkish President recently alleged that Khashoggi’s body was probably dissolved in acid. “The reason they dismembered Khashoggi’s body was to dissolve his remains more easily,” Yasin Aktay told the Turkish media. “Now we see that they not only dismembered his body but also vaporized it.”</s>Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor is recommending the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.

FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 2, 2018 file photo, a video image of Hatice Cengiz, fiancee of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, is played during an event to remember Khashoggi, who was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor said Thursday he’s seeking the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

The disclosures by the prosecution appear aimed at distancing the killers and their operation from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose decision-making powers have thrust him into the centre of a global outcry over the killing.

Chief Saudi prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb’s decision to seek the death penalty before trial is not unusual in Saudi Arabia.

Facing mounting international pressure, prosecutors also pointed the finger at two men who were part of the crown prince’s inner circle, but stopped short of accusing them of ordering a hit on Khashoggi. The two are instead being accused of ordering Khashoggi’s forced return in an operation the Saudis allege went awry.

In a press conference later Thursday, Sheikh Shalan al-Shalan, spokesman and deputy attorney-general, said the Oct. 2 killing was ordered by one man: the individual responsible for the negotiating team sent to forcibly bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia.

He did not disclose that individual’s name, but said he was part of a 15-man team sent to Turkey comprised of three groups: negotiators, intelligence and logistics.

He said that on the morning of the killing, the leader of the negotiating team saw that he would not be able to force Khashoggi to return “so he decided to kill him in the moment.”

This appears to contradict a previous Saudi statement quoting Turkish intelligence saying the killing had been premeditated.

Al-Shalan said that Khashoggi’s killers had set in motion plans for the operation on Sept. 29 — three days before his slaying in Istanbul. He says the killers drugged and killed the writer inside the consulate, before dismembering the body and handing it over for disposal by an unidentified local collaborator. The body has never been found.

The brutal death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who had been critical of the crown prince, has sent shock waves around the world and led analysts and officials to believe a sensitive operation of this magnitude could not have been carried out without the prince’s knowledge.

Read more: Canada stands pat on Saudi arms sales, even after hearing Khashoggi tape

Read more: Turkey to Saudi Arabia: Where is Khashoggi’s body?

The latest Saudi account of what took place failed to appease officials in Turkey, who insist the killing and its coverup were carried out by the highest levels of government.

“We did not find some of his explanations to be satisfactory,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said after the Saudi announcement.

“Those who gave the order, the real perpetrators need to be revealed. This process cannot be closed down in this way,” he added.

Through a series of orchestrated leaks, including audio of the killing shared with Western intelligence, Turkey has attempted to keep pressure on the crown prince, who sees Turkey as a regional rival.

Turkey alleges that among those sent to Istanbul was a forensics expert.

In an apparent reference this specialist, al-Shalan said the organizer of the operation — who was not named — called on a specialist to be part of the team to erase evidence if Khashoggi needed to be forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors said this specialist was working without the direct knowledge of his boss.

Saudi Arabia said 21 people are now in custody, with 11 indicted and referred to trial. The Turkish government is demanding the suspects be investigated and put on trial in Turkey.

Among the high-level officials incriminated in connection with the killing is former deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri, who was fired in the immediate aftermath of the killing.

Al-Assiri, believed to have been a close confidant of Prince Mohammed, and former royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani are accused of planning and ordering Khashoggi’s forced return to Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors say the men formed a 15-man Saudi team to carry out the operation.

Saudi prosecutors said the men deemed Khashoggi a threat because of his work as a writer and because he was allegedly backed by groups and countries that are hostile to Saudi Arabia.

However, Saudi prosecutors stopped short of accusing al-Assiri or al-Qahtani of ordering the killing itself — further distancing the killers from the crown prince’s inner circle and bolstering Saudi assertions that the killing was carried out by rogue agents who exceeded their authority. Both men were fired from their posts last month amid fallout from the killing.

Khashoggi had been living in self-imposed exile abroad for nearly a year before he was killed by Saudi agents at the consulate on Oct. 2. In his writing, he was especially critical of the crown prince, who’d been leading a wide-reaching crackdown on activists and critics inside the kingdom since last year.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage. His Turkish fiancee waited outside and first raised the alarm about his disappearance.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi (all times local):

U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi — a claim the Saudi government has denied.

That’s according to a U.S. official familiar with the conclusion, who spoke Friday only on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The Trump administration this week sanctioned individuals for their alleged role in the killing, but the intelligence officials’ conclusion bolsters efforts in Congress for a harsher U.S. response.

The Washington Post columnist, who had been critical of the royal family, was killed last month at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Turkish and Saudi authorities say he was killed by a team from the kingdom inside the consulate after he went there to get marriage documents.

Funeral prayers were held Friday in Istanbul for journalist Jamal Khashoggi more more than a month after his slaying at the Saudi Consulate.

Khashoggi’s friends, Turkish politicians and others attended funeral prayers at Istanbul’s Fatih Mosque.

The prayers, held “in absentia” because The Washington Post columnist’s remains have not been found, came a day after Saudi Arabia announced it would seek the death penalty against five men suspected in the killing.

The announcement failed to appease Turkey, which has piled increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia, but may be enough for some of Riyadh’s Western allies to move on and press for key demands.</s>It has been widely suggested that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince was aware of the killing — a claim the country's public prosecutor denied.

Saudi Arabia is seeking the death penalty for five people accused of killing Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the country's public prosecutor has announced.

 None of the five suspects have been named, as per the country's legal code, but they are among 11 people charged in connection with Khashoggi's death. A further 10 people are still being investigated, prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb confirmed in a statement, published by the official Saudi Press Agency, on Thursday. Speaking at a press conference in Riyadh, his deputy Shalaan Bin Rajih Shalaan said that the men acted without the knowledge of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.

Khashoggi was last seen alive entering the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2. The Saudi narrative over what happened shifted constantly in the weeks that followed. Bin Salman claimed on Oct. 5 that Khashoggi left the embassy after an hour, telling Bloomberg, "My understanding is he entered and he got out after a few minutes or one hour. I'm not sure. We are investigating this through the foreign ministry to see exactly what happened at that time."



More than two weeks after this denial — and amid a global eruption of criticism and scrutiny — Saudi officials finally admitted the journalist died inside the building, initially claiming he died in a "fistfight".

 At Thursday's press conference the deputy public prosecutor Bin Rajih Shalaan said the former head of Saudi intelligence, Ahmed al-Asiri, had dispatched a team to negotiate Khashoggi's return to Saudi Arabia. Instead, Bin Rajih Shalaan continued, an order was given by the local Istanbul team to kill the journalist.

The deputy public prosecutor said Khashoggi was killed following a fight, during which a decision was taken to inject him with a sedative. It was this overdose, according to Saudi prosecutors, that killed Khashoggi. After he died, his body was dismembered before it was handed over to an outside accomplice who disposed of it. Bin Rajih Shalaan also said that top aide to the Crown Prince, Saud Al-Qahtani, had been banned from leaving the Kingdom.

 Amid an international outcry, there have been claims it would be highly unlikely that the Crown Prince would have been unaware of the decision to kill Khashoggi.

 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the killing was ordered by "the highest levels of the Saudi government," but did not go into any further details.

 Bin Salman has denied having anything to do with Khashoggi's death, calling it a "heinous crime that cannot be justified" and promising that "justice will prevail."</s>Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor is recommending the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.

FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 2, 2018 file photo, a video image of Hatice Cengiz, fiancee of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, is played during an event to remember Khashoggi, who was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor said Thursday he’s seeking the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

The disclosures by the prosecution appear aimed at distancing the killers and their operation from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose decision-making powers have thrust him into the centre of a global outcry over the killing.

Chief Saudi prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb’s decision to seek the death penalty before trial is not unusual in Saudi Arabia.

Facing mounting international pressure, prosecutors also pointed the finger at two men who were part of the crown prince’s inner circle, but stopped short of accusing them of ordering a hit on Khashoggi. The two are instead being accused of ordering Khashoggi’s forced return in an operation the Saudis allege went awry.

In a press conference later Thursday, Sheikh Shalan al-Shalan, spokesman and deputy attorney-general, said the Oct. 2 killing was ordered by one man: the individual responsible for the negotiating team sent to forcibly bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia.

He did not disclose that individual’s name, but said he was part of a 15-man team sent to Turkey comprised of three groups: negotiators, intelligence and logistics.

He said that on the morning of the killing, the leader of the negotiating team saw that he would not be able to force Khashoggi to return “so he decided to kill him in the moment.”

This appears to contradict a previous Saudi statement quoting Turkish intelligence saying the killing had been premeditated.

Al-Shalan said that Khashoggi’s killers had set in motion plans for the operation on Sept. 29 — three days before his slaying in Istanbul. He says the killers drugged and killed the writer inside the consulate, before dismembering the body and handing it over for disposal by an unidentified local collaborator. The body has never been found.

The brutal death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who had been critical of the crown prince, has sent shock waves around the world and led analysts and officials to believe a sensitive operation of this magnitude could not have been carried out without the prince’s knowledge.

Read more: Canada stands pat on Saudi arms sales, even after hearing Khashoggi tape

Read more: Turkey to Saudi Arabia: Where is Khashoggi’s body?

The latest Saudi account of what took place failed to appease officials in Turkey, who insist the killing and its coverup were carried out by the highest levels of government.

“We did not find some of his explanations to be satisfactory,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said after the Saudi announcement.

“Those who gave the order, the real perpetrators need to be revealed. This process cannot be closed down in this way,” he added.

Through a series of orchestrated leaks, including audio of the killing shared with Western intelligence, Turkey has attempted to keep pressure on the crown prince, who sees Turkey as a regional rival.

Turkey alleges that among those sent to Istanbul was a forensics expert.

In an apparent reference this specialist, al-Shalan said the organizer of the operation — who was not named — called on a specialist to be part of the team to erase evidence if Khashoggi needed to be forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors said this specialist was working without the direct knowledge of his boss.

Saudi Arabia said 21 people are now in custody, with 11 indicted and referred to trial. The Turkish government is demanding the suspects be investigated and put on trial in Turkey.

Among the high-level officials incriminated in connection with the killing is former deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri, who was fired in the immediate aftermath of the killing.

Al-Assiri, believed to have been a close confidant of Prince Mohammed, and former royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani are accused of planning and ordering Khashoggi’s forced return to Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors say the men formed a 15-man Saudi team to carry out the operation.

Saudi prosecutors said the men deemed Khashoggi a threat because of his work as a writer and because he was allegedly backed by groups and countries that are hostile to Saudi Arabia.

However, Saudi prosecutors stopped short of accusing al-Assiri or al-Qahtani of ordering the killing itself — further distancing the killers from the crown prince’s inner circle and bolstering Saudi assertions that the killing was carried out by rogue agents who exceeded their authority. Both men were fired from their posts last month amid fallout from the killing.

Khashoggi had been living in self-imposed exile abroad for nearly a year before he was killed by Saudi agents at the consulate on Oct. 2. In his writing, he was especially critical of the crown prince, who’d been leading a wide-reaching crackdown on activists and critics inside the kingdom since last year.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage. His Turkish fiancee waited outside and first raised the alarm about his disappearance.

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Saudi Arabia accuses five of its officials of killing and dismembering journalist Jamal Khashoggi.