ISTANBUL - Former UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson has put forth an intriguing argument for finding the killers of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi: not doing so will help Iran! Oh, and maybe the war on Yemen is bad, also.
Khashoggi, a self-exiled critic of the current Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2. Ankara immediately accused Riyadh of murdering the journalist, with anonymous government officials offering many graphic accounts of his death. After initially denying the accusations, the Saudis admitted Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate. The investigation is ongoing.
Writing in the Post on Thursday, Johnson seemed confident he knew all the facts already.
“I don’t have any doubt about what happened: the plot to lure him to the Saudi consulate; the savage attack by heavies from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s own security team; the dismembering of the body,” he said. “Nor do I doubt for a second that this disgusting assassination was ordered at the highest levels of the Saudi regime.”
Interestingly, Johnson’s phrasing about the “highest levels” is identical to that of Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who wrote that the Turks “know that the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government,” in an opinion piece the Post published last week.
Though Erdogan did not once mention Bin Salman’s name, it was abundantly clear from the piece that he was advocating a palace coup in Riyadh in which King Salman would pick another successor – someone less hostile to Turkey and Qatar, perhaps. (Russia Today)