WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Thursday he now believesjournalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead and warned of “very severe” consequencesshould Saudi Arabia be proven responsible.
“It certainly looks that way to me. It s very sad,” Trump told journalistswhen asked if he believed that Khashoggi, who disappeared more than twoweeks ago, is no longer alive.
Asked about the potential US response to Saudi Arabia, which is accused ofmurdering the Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi regime,Trump said: “It will have to be very severe. It s bad, bad stuff.”
This marked a hardening of tone from the Trump administration, which hasbeen reluctant to blame ally Saudi Arabia, despite mounting evidence thatthe kingdom s agents killed and dismembered Khashoggi inside its consulatein Istanbul more than two weeks ago.
A former regime insider, Khashoggi had become a critic of powerful CrownPrince Mohammed bin Salman, the point man in ever-tightening military andcommercial relations between the petro-state and the Trump administration.
Just hours earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had told Trumpthe Saudis should be given “a few more days to complete” an investigation.
Only then, Pompeo said, “we can make decisions how or if the United Statesshould respond.”
In a possible sign of how the Saudis will seek to defuse the diplomaticcrisis, The New York Times reported that the country s rulers could comeout and blame General Ahmed al-Assiri, a top intelligence official close tothe crown prince.
Four prominent human rights and press freedom groups on Thursday urgedTurkey to request a United Nations investigation to prevent a “whitewash”of the alleged crime.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, AmnestyInternational and Reporters Without Borders said such a probe establishedby UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would finally clear up the affair.
But the United States, the Saudis most powerful patron, has repeatedlygiven the country s royals the benefit of the doubt, with Trump and topofficials stressing that the US-Saudi relationship cannot be put at risk.
Trump has repeatedly praised massive Saudi arms purchases, while Pompeoused much of his brief remarks on Thursday to recall Washington s “longstrategic relationship with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
The Saudis “continue to be an important counter-terrorism partner, theyhave custody of the two holy sites… We need to be mindful of that aswell,” he said.
The furor has also blown a hole in next week s Future Investment Initiativeconference in Riyadh, which was meant to showcase Prince Mohammed s plansfor modernizing the desert kingdom.
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US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was pulling out, joiningsenior ministers from Britain, France and the Netherlands, as well as astring of corporate leaders.
Mnuchin s announcement on Twitter helped push down stock prices on WallStreet.
His withdrawal “raises worry that the administration is being pushed totake a harder line against Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi murder and therecould be retaliation,” said Karl Haeling of LBBW.
Responses from Saudi Arabia could include selling US Treasuries, orpunishing US companies seeking business in the kingdom, Haeling said.
Most analysts don t think Saudi Arabia would cut off oil supplies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, took a dig at Washington,saying that “the US holds a certain responsibility over what happened tohim.”
But he said Moscow would not “start deteriorating relations” with SaudiArabia as long as “it did not know what really happened.”
Neither Turkey nor the United States has publicly confirmed that Khashoggiis dead or said officially that Riyadh is to blame.
But a steady stream of unconfirmed leaks from officials to Turkish mediahave painted a detailed and horrifying picture of Khashoggi s last minutes,allegedly at the hands of 15 Saudi agents waiting for him when he came tothe consulate for paperwork.
The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper on Wednesday claimed it had heardaudio tapes in which Khashoggi s alleged killers tortured him by cuttinghis fingers off before his decapitation.
The pro-government Sabah newspaper on Thursday said Saudi security officialMaher Abdulaziz Mutreb, believed to be close to the crown prince, was theleader of the operation.
“Here is the head of the execution team,” said Sabah s headline, and thepaper then detailed Mutreb s movements on the day Khashoggi went missing. -APP/AFP
