Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on Sunday called the killing of Jamal Khashoggi a “huge and grave mistake” but said the kingdom did not know where the body of the slain journalist was.
Speaking in an interview on Fox News, Jubeir said the Saudi leadership initially believed Khashoggihad left its consulate in Istanbul, where he was last seen on October 2.
But following “reports we were getting from Turkey”, Saudi authorities began an investigation, which discovered he was killed in the diplomatic mission.
“We don’t know, in terms of details, how. We don’t know where the body is,” Jubeir said, adding that the Saudi public prosecutor had put out orders to detain 18 individuals, “the first step in a long journey”.
Reporting from the Turkish capital, Ankara, FRANCE 24’s Jasper Mortimer noted that once again, Saudi statements on the Khashoggi case appeared to strain credulity. “Observers will reply that if the Saudis have arrested 18 suspects in the killing, why aren’t they asking those suspects what they did with the body,” said Mortimer.
“The body is key to this whole affair. The Saudis are saying Jamal Khashoggi died in a fistfight. The Turks are saying he was tortured, his fingers were cut off and then his body was dismembered. Once the body is found, an autopsy can be conducted and we will see how he was killed and what was the cause of death,” Mortimer explained.
While Saudi Foreign Minister Jubeir’s comments on Sunday were some of the most direct yet from Riyadh on the case, the series of conflicting accounts from the House of Saud has undermined global confidence in ties with the world’s top oil exporter.
In his interview on Fox News, Jubeir called the killing a “huge and grave mistake”. He however insisted the current strains in US-Saudi relations would eventually be overcome.
“The individuals who did this, did this outside the scope of their authority. There obviously was a tremendous mistake made, and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to try to cover up,” Jubeir said.
The top Saudi diplomat maintained the operation in Istanbul was not ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite reports tying some suspects to members of the Saudi de facto ruler’s security detail.