Saudia Arabia’s rulers are considering blaming a top intelligence official close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Citing three unnamed sources, the Times said Saudi rulers are expected to say Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, a high-ranking adviser to the crown prince, got a verbal go-ahead from Mohammed to capture Khashoggi for an interrogation in Saudi Arabia, but either misunderstood his instructions or overstepped that authorization and killed Khashoggi.
Assiri has been a well-known face to the international news media since he was named as spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015. He was promoted last year to his current job in intelligence, and the Saudis are expected to contend he was trying to prove himself, the Times reported.
“The responsibility is with the de facto ruler, who is the crown prince,” Madawi al-Rasheed, a professor at the London School of Economics and a frequent critic of the crown prince, told the Times.
Four of the suspects Turkey has blamed for Khashoggi’s disappearance belong to the security that travels with the crown prince, the Times reported.