'Don't embarass our guest': Trump defends Saudi prince during White House press grilling

Donald Trump stated “things happen” in response to a question about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, as Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was grilled in the White House on Tuesday about the killing of the former Middle East Eye journalist. 

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was greeted with cannon fire, a military band and a US air force fly-past, in his first visit to the United States since the murder of Khashoggi in October 2018. 

Saudi agents murdered the 59-year-old journalist after luring him into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, in an assassination that US intelligence believes was approved by the crown prince.

When the crown prince was asked about Khashoggi’s death during a joint press conference on Tuesday, the US president came to his defence. 

“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about,” Trump said. 

“Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but [Mohammed bin Salman] knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”

The crown prince described Khashoggi’s death as “painful”. 

“About the journalist, it's really painful to hear anyone losing his life for no real purpose or not in a legal way,” he said.

“And it's been painful for us in Saudi Arabia. We did all the right steps of investigation, et cetera, in Saudi Arabia. And we've improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that.”

The US administration under Joe Biden published a report in 2021 which concluded that the crown prince approved the order to “capture or kill” Khashoggi.

Saudi officials at the time rejected the report’s findings. 

'Sham trial'

Middle East Eye exclusively reported in October 2018 that seven of 15 men suspected of involvement in the operation to kill Khashoggi belonged to the crown prince’s personal security and protection detail. 

Most of them were high-ranking officers who had accompanied the crown prince on diplomatic visits to the UK and France earlier that year. 

MEE also reported that it took seven minutes for Khashoggi to be killed, citing Turkish sources.

Khashoggi was dragged from the consul-general’s office and onto the table of his study next door, where horrendous screams were heard by a witness. The screams stopped when the journalist was injected with a substance. 

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In December 2019, a Saudi court sentenced five people to death and sent three others to jail over the killing.

The prosecutor did not name the individuals sentenced but the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions had identified the defendants.

Some of the defendants in the trial who were facing the death penalty had their sentences commuted to time in prison.

The trial was largely seen as a sham and condemned as a "parody of justice" by then UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard.

But in 2021, the Guardian reported that at least three members of the hit squad were residing and working "in seven-star accommodation" at a government-run security compound in Riyadh.

Rather than being detained in Saudi Arabia's notorious prisons, the convicted killers were believed to be staying in villas and buildings run by the kingdom's state security agency, where they were visited by family members, with caterers, gardeners and technicians frequently attending the compound. 

A source connected to senior members of Saudi intelligence told the British newspaper that Salah al-Tubaigy, the forensic doctor from the Saudi interior ministry who MEE first reported had cut up Khashoggi's body inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, was one of the individuals seen inside the compound.

The source, who spoke to two witnesses who claim to have seen the men, also said that Mustafa al-Madani, the body double dispatched by the hit squad who was seen leaving the consulate wearing Khashoggi's clothing, and Mansour Abahussain, a major-general who was present in the consulate on the day of the killing, were also seen at the compound.

The killing created a major rift between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, however the countries repaired ties in 2022. 

In April 2022, Ankara announced that it had decided to hand its own Khashoggi trial to Saudi Arabia, a case involving 26 suspects linked to his killing. 

Khashoggi was not the only figure sought by the Saudis: MEE reported details of the “Tiger Squad”, a secret unit set up under the crown prince with the aim of covertly assassinating Saudi dissidents inside the kingdom and abroad.