Iran Press/ Middle East: Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that he bears responsibility for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year by Saudi operatives because it happened under his watch, according to a preview of a PBS documentary, which is to be broadcast next week.
Mohammed bin Salman has not spoken publicly about the killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The CIA and some Western governments have said he ordered it, but Saudi officials say he had no role, Al Jazeera reported.
"It happened under my watch. I get all the responsibility because it happened under my watch," he told PBS' Martin Smith in the documentary, The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, set to air on October 1, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Khashoggi's death.
Khashoggi's killing by a team of Saudi operatives in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, provoked widespread revulsion and marred the image of the crown prince.
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Asked how the killing could happen without him knowing about it, Smith quotes Prince Mohammed as saying: "We have 20 million people. We have three million government employees."
Smith asked whether the killers could have taken private government jets, to which the crown prince responded: "I have officials, ministers to follow things, and they're responsible. They have the authority to do that."
Bin Salman's remarks came despite the fact that US President Donald Trump had asserted that Bin Salman had no involvement in Khashoggi's death despite the CIA's claims, saying that Crown Prince’s culpability for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi might never be known.
Jamal Khashoggi, a known critic of the Saudi regime, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Turkey on 2 October 2018, while trying to obtain marriage papers. Both the CIA and the United Nations have concluded that the Crown Prince either ordered the murder or was aware of it before it took place.
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