“Do I think he did it? Yes, I think he did it,” the Tennessee senator says.
Sen. Bob Corker said on Sunday he thinks Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman directed the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“It is my thinking that MBS was involved in this, that he directed this and that this person was purposely murdered,” said Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, referring to the journalist’s death that Saudi Arabia confirmed over the weekend. Corker (R-Tenn.) was speaking on CNN‘s “State of the Union.“
“Do I think he did it? Yes, I think he did it,” Corker said referring to bin Salman. Corker added that he did not yet have all the facts about the case.
“I want to know more about it, but that’s my sense,” he said.
Saudi Arabia confirmed Saturday for the first time that Khashoggi died in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul earlier this month, claiming that the Washington Post columnist‘s death came after an argument and a “fist fight” with men in the facility.
The Arab state, which originally insisted Khashoggi had left its consulate alive, also has arrested 18 Saudi nationals suspected of involvement in Khashoggi’s death, according to its Foreign Ministry. Four top Saudi intelligence officials and a top royal adviser have been fired, apparently for their connection to the episode.
Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2; he was not seen alive after that. When Saudi Arabia subsequently said that he left on his own, Turkey pushed back on that narrative, based on its own surveillance.
