US announces penalties against Saudi agents in response to killing of journalist

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave an account Oct. 23 of the killing of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi that sharply contradicted Saudi Arabia’s claims. </caption>

ISTANBUL — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Tuesday that the United States is revoking visas for the Saudi men accused of killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

The U.S. measures represent the Trump administration’s first concrete step to punish Saudi Arabia for what the Turkish government called the “planned” and “brutal” murder of a Washington Post contributing columnist.

Pompeo said he is also working with the Treasury Department on whether to impose other sanctions against those responsible for the journalist’s death.

“These penalties will not be the last word on this matter from the United States,” Pompeo said during a briefing at the State Department. “We will continue to explore additional measures to hold those responsible accountable.”

The Trump administration has lagged behind the international community in criticizing the Saudi government for the killing of the journalist, but has started expressing frustration with Riyadh’s shifting accounts of what happened after Khashoggi entered the consulate on Oct. 2.

“The cover-up was the worst in the history of cover-ups,” President Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.

At the same time, Trump and Pompeo both stressed the importance of Washington’s relationship with Riyadh, which buys billions of dollars of planes, bombs and other equipment from the United States every year.

“We are making very clear that the United States does not tolerate this kind of ruthless action to silence Mr. Khashoggi, a journalist, with violence,” Pompeo said. But he noted that “we continue to maintain a strong partnership with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Lawmakers in Washington have called on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi kingdom’s de facto leader, to step down in wake of Khashoggi’s death. Pompeo pledged that the United States would hold accountable not only those who “executed” the mission but also “those who were connected to it.”

Earlier in the day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Saudi Arabia to extradite 18 suspects to Turkey to face justice for the crime.

Erdogan’s highly anticipated comments, during a speech to his ruling party in Ankara, the Turkish capital, contradicted Saudi accounts that Khashoggi was killed when an argument inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul escalated into a fistfight.  

The Turkish leader did not directly accuse the Saudi leadership of involvement in the killing but strongly indicated that the Saudi investigation, which has resulted in the arrests of 18 people so far, had not reached high enough into the kingdom’s ruling circles.  

“It will not satisfy the public by just pinning this kind of matter on a few security and intelligence officers,” he said. “Covering up this kind of savagery will hurt the conscience of all humanity.” 

“Saudi Arabia took an important step by accepting the murder. After this, we expect them to reveal those responsible for this matter. We have information that the murder is not instant, but planned,” he said.

Providing several new details, Erdogan described an operation in which Saudi agents removed the hard disk on a consulate camera and one team visited wooded areas in and around Istanbul “for reconnaissance” before the murder and also. These were areas that Turkish police later focused on as they searched for Khashoggi’s body.

Erdogan did not address the most explosive allegations that have surfaced during the investigation — notably that Khashoggi was dismembered after he was killed. And he did not present any of the evidence Turkey had gathered so far, including audio recordings investigators are said to possess that captured the moments when Khashoggi was killed.

But the president provided the most detailed timeline yet of the days and hours leading up the murder three weeks ago.

The killing has provoked international outrage over Saudi Arabia’s conduct and raised urgent questions about whether Mohammed was involved in the plot.

Mohammed on Tuesday received a standing ovation when he appeared at a major investment conference in Riyadh — which some Western executives and leaders have withdrawn from because of the controversy — but the crown prince did not address the crowd.

Separately on Tuesday, the official Saudi Press Agency published photos of the Saudi monarch King Salman and the crown prince meeting two members of Khashoggi’s family, including his son.

Saudi Press Agency

EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi, the son of late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in Riyadh on Tuesday.

Saudi's King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with family members of slain Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Oct. 23. Saudi Arabia recently acknowledged Khashoggi was killed Oct. 2 in its consulate in Istanbul.

One photo showed the son, Salah, looking ashen-faced and shaking hands with Mohammed as a video cameraman stood in the background. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry wrote on Twitter that the leaders shared “their deepest condolences and sympathy to the family of Jamal Khashoggi, may God rest his soul.”

In his speech Tuesday, Erdogan directly addressed King Salman, noticeably making no mention of the 33-year-old crown prince. Erdogan requested that the 18 Saudi suspects arrested so far be put on trial in Istanbul and said it was important that any Saudi investigation be carried out “by an impartial and fair delegation” with no connections to the murder.  

In the timeline that Erdogan laid out, the team of Saudi agents who were dispatched to Istanbul had carefully prepared for Khashoggi’s death.

The Saudi team that plotted the murder was first alerted, Erdogan said, after Khashoggi visited the consulate on Friday, Sept. 28. 

“Planning and the work of a road map starts here,” the president said. Beginning three days later, on Oct. 1, teams of Saudi agents begin arriving in Istanbul, with one team performing reconnaissance in nearby wooded areas. The Saudi team consisted of “intelligence, security and forensic workers,” Erdogan said.

Khashoggi entered the mission at around 1:14 p.m. on Oct. 2. When he had not emerged a few hours later, his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting for him outside, alerted authorities, and an investigation was started, Erdogan said. Camera footage showed that Khashoggi never left, he added.  

Erdogan highlighted attempts by the Saudis to obstruct or cover up the killing, including a ruse involving a Saudi agent who was dressed like Khashoggi and captured on camera exiting the consulate.

“Why did 15 people gather in Istanbul the day of the murder? Who did these people receive orders from?” he asked. “Why was the consulate opened not immediately but days later for investigation? When the murder was obvious, why were inconsistent explanations given?” 

“Why is the body still not found?” 

[CIA director flies to Turkey amid controversy over Jamal Khashoggi killing]

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Tuesday that the kingdom was committed to a “comprehensive investigation” into the journalist’s death and has dispatched a team to Turkey.

Speaking in Indonesia on Tuesday, Jubeir said the Saudi investigators had “uncovered evidence of a murder.” He also vowed to put mechanisms in place that would prevent similar incidents in future, without expanding upon what those would be. 

In Washington, Vice President Pence said Tuesday that the murder of Khashoggi was a “tragedy for his family, for his loved ones” but also “an assault on a free and independent press.” The Trump administration “is determined to use all means at its disposal to get to the bottom of it,” he added.

“We want to know what happened. We’re going to follow the facts,” Pence said at the outset of an appearance at an event hosted by The Washington Post to discuss a planned space force. “We’ll also make sure the world knows the truth of what happened.”

Pence said Khashoggi’s murder “will not go without an American response,” although he declined to preview what that might be.

Asked about Erdogan’s remarks earlier in the day, Pence said the notion of a premeditated attack “flies in the face of earlier assertions” by the Saudis.

The Khashoggi case has also embarrassed the Trump administration, which regards the crown prince as one of its closest Arab allies and Saudi Arabia as a cornerstone of a U.S. strategy to counter Iran. On Monday, CIA Director Gina Haspel headed to Turkey, where she is expected to assess the strength of the evidence that Turkish officials have collected.

“The world is watching,” Pence said. “The American people want answers.”

During Erdogan’s address Tuesday, lawmakers from his party sat mostly silent as the president detailed what his government knows about the operation that led to Khashoggi’s death. But when he shifted to his demands of the Saudi royals, the audience cheered enthusiastically at the mentions of Turkey’s sovereignty and authority to prosecute the suspects.

STR

EPA-EFE/Rex/Shutterstock

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the parliament in Ankara on Tuesday.

“For the first time, the president gave a clear statement about the details,” said Mehdi Eker, a lawmaker and senior member of Erdogan’s party. “The whole speech was aimed at getting answers.”

Eker said Erdogan articulated the nation’s priorities in the case: that there is a transparent and complete investigation that spares no official, no matter how senior, and that the suspects be extradited and tried in Turkey.

“This assassination happened in our country,” he said. “We will be following up on both the bilateral level and the international level.”

Asked if the president possessed evidence that the crown prince had directly ordered Khashoggi to be forced back to Saudi Arabia or assassinated, Eker responded, “Of course not.”

“We do not have any clue about that,” he said, but added that Turkey is seeking to learn more about the role of the Saudi consul general in Istanbul in Khashoggi’s death. The consul general, Mohammed al-Otaibi, left Turkey last week and has not returned. Eker said the careful planning that began days before Khashoggi’s killing makes Otaibi a central figure to the Turkish investigation.

In the weeks since Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have offered conflicting versions about what happened to him. While Turkish officials have released some evidence that they say proves a pre-meditated murder was committed, Saudi Arabia initially asserted that Khashoggi had walked out of the consulate unharmed, before later acknowledging that he had been killed, allegedly in a fistfight that involved “rogue” Saudi agents.

Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post who wrote columns critical of the Saudi leadership over the last year, went to the consulate on the afternoon of Oct. 2 to obtain documents that would allow him to remarry.

His death has altered the global reputation of the crown prince, who has eased social restrictions at home while pursuing an unrelenting crackdown on rivals and critics, imprisoning hundreds. Mohammed has also tried to lure exiled dissidents such as Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia, back to Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi’s friends and other exiles have said.

As Saudi Arabia on Tuesday opened its landmark business conference — part of the crown prince’s plan to diversify the economy and reduce reliance on oil revenues — the country’s foreign ministry released video of him inside a crowd of attendees, posing for a selfie.

Despite the pullout of several high-profile participants, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, the event was packed with people from across the Middle East, as well as from China and India.

El-Ghobashy reported from Ankara. Hudson reported from Washington. Louisa Loveluck in Beirut, Zeynep Karatas in Istanbul, and John Wagner and Carol Morello in Washington contributed to this report. 

Read more         

New footage appears to show Saudi suspect wearing Jamal Khashoggi’s clothing  

Istanbul has felt like home for Arab exiles. Khashoggi’s killing has them scared.  

Mnuchin meets with Saudi Crown Prince despite outcry over government’s role in journalist’s death  

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world            

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news         

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Read Again https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/turkeys-president-to-deliver-speech-expected-to-describe-how-khashoggi-was-killed/2018/10/22/4098c300-d60c-11e8-8384-bcc5492fef49_story.html

Bagikan Berita Ini