Targeting crown prince over Khashoggi ‘a red line’: Saudi minister

WASHINGTON: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was “not involved” in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and blaming him would be crossing “a red line,” Saudi Arabia’s minister of state for foreign affairs said Friday.

“For anyone to think that they can dictate what we should do, what our leadership should do, is preposterous,” Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in Washington, where many US lawmakers have stated they believe Prince Mohammed is responsible for Khashoggi’s killing last year at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul. “Our leadership is a red line,” al-Jubeir added.

US pressed on Khashoggi amid report Saudiprince threatened ‘bullet’: US lawmakers threatened Thursday to take tougher action against Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi amid a new revelation that the kingdom's powerful crown prince spoke of going after him with a "bullet."

President Donald Trump faces a Friday deadline set by Congress to determine if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi, who was strangled and dismembered after entering the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

Special UN rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, said Thursday after a visit to Turkey that the killing of Khashoggi, who had written critical pieces on Saudi Arabia in The Washington Post, had been "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. The New York Times, citing officials who had seen US intelligence, said that Prince Mohammed had warned in an intercepted conversation to an aide in 2017 that he would go after Khashoggi "with a bullet" if he did not return to Saudi Arabia from the United States. US intelligence understood that the ambitious 33-year-old heir apparent was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him, according to the newspaper.

Khashoggi fiance hopes Trump will change mind on killing: The Turkish fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said Friday she hoped pressure from the US Congress would encourage the Trump adminstration to take a tougher stance on the killing. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, was killed on October 2 by Saudi agents during a visit to his country’s consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork ahead of his wedding to Hatice Cengiz. During a press conference in Istanbul for a book on Khashoggi’s life, Cengiz left the door open to a meeting with US President Donald Trump if certain conditions were met. The book, titled "Jamal Khashoggi: his life, his fight, his secrets", was writtenby Turkish journalists Mehmet Akif Ersoy and Sinan Onus with testimony from Cengiz.