Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman has admitted ‘mistakes’ over the killing of US-based journalist and critic, Jamal Khashoggi.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News, the 38-year-old controversial Crown Prince said he was reforming the kingdom’s security system to avoid such ‘mistakes’ in the future.
‘It was a mistake. It was painful,’ the crown prince said while insisting that ‘everyone involved’ served jail time.
‘We try to reform the security system to be sure that this kind of mistake doesn’t happen again, and we can see in the past five years nothing of those things happened. It’s not part of what Saudi Arabia does.
‘We take all the legal measurements that any country took… We did that in Saudi Arabia and the case being closed,’ MBS said.
Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who wrote for the Washington Post and was critical of the Saudi government was brutally murdered on October 2, 2018, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in a case that sparked international outrage.
Mr Khashoggi had visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, planning to pick up documents needed for his wedding.
Once inside, he died at the hands of more than a dozen Saudi security and intelligence officials and others who had assembled ahead of his arrival.
A Turkish bug planted at the consulate reportedly captured the sound of a forensic saw, operated by a Saudi colonel who was also a forensics expert, dismembering Mr Khashoggi’s body within an hour of him entering the building.
His body has still not been found.
According to a declassified intelligence report, Mohammed bin Salman likely approved an operation to kill or capture a US-based journalist inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
In 2019, the crown prince said he took “full responsibility” for the killing since it happened on his watch, but denied ordering it.
Saudi officials have said Mr. Khashoggi’s killing was the work of rogue Saudi security and intelligence officials.
Saudi Arabian courts last year announced they had sentenced eight Saudi nationals to prison. They were not identified.