The Biden administration will release an intelligence report on Thursday concluding that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, according to three US officials familiar with the case.
The intelligence assessment, based largely on the work of the CIA, is not new – NBC News was one of the organizations to confirm it in 2018. But the public release marks an important new chapter in the US-Saudi relationship and a clear break by the president. Joe Biden with former President Donald Trump’s policy of questioning the role of the Saudi state in a brutal murder widely condemned by members of Congress, journalists and a United Nations investigator.
Reuters first reported on the declassified intelligence agency summary to be released Thursday.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday that Biden would communicate with the Saudi king, rather than his son the crown prince. She said the declassified Khashoggi report would be released soon.
It remains to be seen how the release will affect US-Saudi Arabia relations. According to the State Department, Biden officials have been in contact with the Saudis since taking office.
Khashoggi, 59, was a Saudi citizen who worked as a Washington Post columnist when he was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 and murdered by an intelligence team closely associated with the Crown Prince. His body was partially dismembered with a bone saw, US officials said, and the remains have never been found.
After first denying the murder, the Saudi government changed course, claiming that the journalist was accidentally killed when the team tried to forcibly extradite him. The Saudis say the team acted on its own and the crown prince was not involved.
Eight men were convicted in a trial international observers called a farce, and five were sentenced to death. Their sentences were later commuted to 20 years after they were reportedly forgiven by Khashoggi’s relatives.
Agnes Callamard, who was investigating the murder for the United Nations, accused Saudi Arabia of “deliberate premeditated execution, an extrajudicial murder for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible under international human rights law”.
The CIA presented the White House with its verdict in 2018, but it didn’t seem to change Trump’s friendly relations with Saudi Arabia and bin Salman in particular.
Trump bragged in 2019 that he protected Bin Salman from Congressional scrutiny, in taped interviews with journalist Bob Woodward.
“I saved him,” Trump said. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop. ‘
“Do you believe he did it?” Asked Woodward.
“No, he says he didn’t,” Trump replied.
During the 2020 election campaign, Biden pledged to make the Saudis “pay the price and basically make them the pariah that they are.”
Biden has ended US support for the Saudi war in Yemen, but he has not stopped military aid to a key Middle East ally and counter-terrorism partner.
“It is the president’s intention, as well as this government’s intention, to recalibrate our engagement with Saudi Arabia,” Psaki said Wednesday.
