{"id":187869,"date":"2025-11-18T22:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/187869\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T22:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:12:08","slug":"trump-contradicts-us-intelligence-insists-saudi-ruler-had-no-role-in-journalists-murder-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/187869\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump contradicts US intelligence, insists Saudi ruler had no role in journalist\u2019s murder \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US<\/a> president Donald Trump<\/a> fiercely defended Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday, insisting the crown prince did not know about the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, effectively contradicting an assessment by US intelligence agencies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The controversy over the killing of Khashoggi, a US-based critic of the Saudi leadership, flared again as the kingdom\u2019s de facto ruler made his first White House visit in more than seven years seeking to further rehabilitate his global image tarnished by the incident.<\/p>\n

US intelligence concluded that bin Salman approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi<\/a> consulate in Istanbul. The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom\u2019s de facto ruler.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people didn\u2019t like that gentleman that you\u2019re talking about, whether you like him or didn\u2019t like him,\u201d Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office with the crown prince sitting beside him. \u201cThings happened, but he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crown prince said it had been \u201cpainful\u201d to hear about Khashoggi\u2019s death but that his government \u201cdid all the right steps of investigation\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that. And it\u2019s painful and it\u2019s a huge mistake,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump also praised the crown prince for doing an \u201cincredible\u201d job on human rights but did not elaborate. Mr bin Salman has been strongly criticised by human rights groups not only for the Khashoggi killing but for his crackdown on dissent at home.<\/p>\n

At the start of his visit, the crown prince was greeted with a lavish display of pomp and ceremony presided over by Trump on the South Lawn of the White House, complete with a military honour guard, a cannon salute and a flyover by US warplanes.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Why Donald Trump is rolling out red carpet for Saudi crown princeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"USUS president Donald Trump welcomes crown prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia to the White House on Tuesday. Photograph: Kenny Holston\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

The warm welcome in Washington is the latest sign that relations have recovered from the deep strain caused by Khashoggi\u2019s murder<\/p>\n

The crown prince promised on Tuesday to increase his country\u2019s US investment to $1 trillion from a $600 billion pledge he made when Mr Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May. But he offered no details or timetable.<\/p>\n

Talks between the two leaders looked set to advance security ties, civil nuclear co-operation and multibillion-dollar business deals with the kingdom.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0US House votes almost unanimously in favour of Bill demanding release of all Epstein filesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Trump told reporters that the two countries had reached a \u201cdefence agreement,\u201d without providing details, and that Saudi Arabia would buy advanced US-made F-35 fighter jets.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump said he got a \u201cpositive response\u201d about the prospects for Saudi Arabia normalising ties with Israel<\/a>. But the crown prince made clear that while he wanted to join the Abraham Accords, he was sticking to his condition that Israel must provide a path to Palestinian statehood, which it has refused to do.<\/p>\n

The meeting underscores a key relationship \u2013 between the world\u2019s biggest economy and the top oil exporter \u2013 that Mr Trump has made a high priority in his second term as the international uproar around the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi insider-turned-critic, has gradually faded. – Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump fiercely defended Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,381,356,13,14,6,18929,71,11,12,15,16,5,15112,7,8,107,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-187869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-saudi-arabia","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115573001287711395","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}