{"id":580549,"date":"2025-11-19T14:23:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T14:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/580549\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T14:23:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T14:23:17","slug":"what-happened-to-jamal-khashoggi-trump-resurfaces-memories-of-journalists-brutal-murder-jamal-khashoggi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/580549\/","title":{"rendered":"What happened to Jamal Khashoggi? Trump resurfaces memories of journalist\u2019s brutal murder | Jamal Khashoggi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump on Tuesday said that Mohammed bin Salman<\/a>, the Saudi crown prince, had nothing to do with the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, whose assassination in 2018 left the Saudi leader an international pariah.<\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s own intelligence services, as well as a 2019 UN investigation, have painted a very different picture. The assassination took place inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where a 15-person team led by a close associate of Prince Mohammed was said to have drugged, murdered and dismembered Khashoggi in order to hide evidence of the crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you like him or didn\u2019t like him, things happen,\u201d<\/a> Trump said when asked about the killing by a reporter during an Oval Office appearance with Prince Mohammed on Tuesday. \u201cBut [Prince Mohammed] knew nothing about it,\u201d continued Trump. \u201cAnd we can leave it at that. You don\u2019t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is not what the US Office of the director of national intelligence concluded in 2021, when a report by the agency laid the blame for Khashoggi\u2019s death directly on Prince Mohammed<\/a>, who on Tuesday made his first visit to the US since the assassination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe assess that Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>,\u201d the 2021 report read.<\/p>\n

The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom\u2019s de facto ruler.<\/p>\n

The motive for Khashoggi\u2019s murder was clear: the journalist was a leading critic of Prince Mohammed, who had amassed power under his ailing father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, as he sought to succeed him after his death.<\/p>\n

When Khashoggi entered a Saudi consulate in Turkey in order to certify divorce papers, he was not aware that a 15-person team including members of Prince Mohammed\u2019s elite personal bodyguard, as well as his close adviser Saud al-Qahtani, had been dispatched to capture or kill him. Inside, one of the men asked whether the \u201csacrificial animal\u201d had arrived. \u201cHe has,\u201d another answered.<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump says Mohammed bin Salman ‘knew nothing’ about Jamal Khashoggi murder \u2013 video<\/p>\n

What happened next became public only because Turkish spies had bugged the premises, allowing them to listen in as the hit squad prepared and then carried out the gruesome murder.<\/p>\n

Inside the embassy, Khashoggi was told by Saudi officials that there was an Interpol warrant for his arrest and that he would be taken back to Saudi Arabia<\/a>. Khashoggi protested before a struggle began in which he was overpowered.<\/p>\n

\u201cAssessments of the recordings by intelligence officers in Turkey and other countries suggest that Mr Khashoggi could have been injected with a sedative and then suffocated using a plastic bag,\u201d read a report prepared by Agn\u00e8s Callamard, who was the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.<\/p>\n

Before Khashoggi entered the consulate, a Saudi doctor was said to be describing an operation by which he would dismember Khashoggi\u2019s body so it could be secretly transported out of the premises.<\/p>\n

The process would \u201cbe easy\u201d, the doctor said. \u201cJoints will be separated. It is not a problem. The body is heavy. First time I cut on the ground. If we take plastic bags and cut it into pieces, it will be finished. We will wrap each of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is what took place next.<\/p>\n

\u201cSounds of movement and heavy panting could be heard in the remainder of the recordings,\u201d the UN report continued. \u201cThe sound of plastic sheets (wrapping) could also be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Turkish intelligence assessment identified the sound of a saw,\u201d the report added.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, CCTV cameras captured three men carrying plastic bin bags and at least one rolling suitcase carrying what investigators believed to be Khashoggi\u2019s dismembered corpse.<\/p>\n

The killing, which took place during Trump\u2019s first term, caused a diplomatic crisis, but the US president is now seeking to boost the US\u2019s relationship with the Saudis.<\/p>\n

Prince Mohammed 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

Trump\u2019s comments prompted a rebuke from Khashoggi\u2019s widow. \u201cNothing [can] justify just a horrible crime,\u201d Hanan Elatr told Reuters in an interview, adding that she wished the US president would meet her so that she could introduce him to the \u201creal Jamal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Khashoggi\u2019s widow also told US media that she still had not recovered her husband\u2019s remains.<\/p>\n

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This article was amended on 19 November 2025. An earlier version incorrectly said King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was deceased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump on Tuesday said that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, had nothing to do with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-580549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115576820492079566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}