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Agencies
Washington
US President Donald Trump said that it is very possible that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had knowledge of the tragic killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In a statement issued by the White House on Tuesday, Trump said the US intelligence agencies were still studying the evidence of how Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, and who planned it.
"It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event," Trump said."We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," he added.
Defying pressure from US lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Saudi Arabia, the president indicated he had no intention of cancelling military contracts with the kingdom."If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries," the president said.
Trump's comments come just days after US media reported that the CIA concluded MBS ordered Khashoggi's murder.
Khashoggi, a contributing columnist for the Washington Post, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 when he went there to pick up documents needed for his planned marriage. A critic of the Saudi government, Khashoggi had resisted pressure from Riyadh for him to return home. Saudi Arabia initially rejected its nationals were behind the killing, but as Turkish authorities continued to leak evidence of high-level involvement, Riyadh eventually admitted its agents carried out the killing with a series of contradictory explanations.
