By Lewinski Lopez
Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on Oct. 2, 2018. There was footage of Khashoggi entering the Saudi consulate, but no footage of him leaving was ever found.
Khashoggi has been known to strongly oppose and critique Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman. Three days before Khashoggi went missing, he told the BBC that he had made powerful enemies, which is why there is strong suspicion that the Saudi government is somehow involved with the disappearance.
Despite a lack of evidence, the Turkish government is claiming that Saudi officials arrived on two unchartered planes, and 15 assassins killed Khashoggi within two hours of his arrival at the consulate. They claim that the body was taken out in a convoy of vehicles which included a suspicious looking black van.
This has become an American problem because Saudi Arabia has promised to buy over $100 billion in weapons from the United States, which is something the United States would economically benefit from. Khashoggi is an American resident who writes for the Washington Post, and it would be difficult for the U.S to continue to be allied with a country that kills journalists.
President Trump was asked to step in and investigate what took place at the consulate. In a live interview with MSNBC, Trump claimed that he had spoken with the King of Saudi Arabia and that the King “..firmly denied any knowledge of it.” Trump continued, “..it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. Who knows?” He then added, “We’re gonna try getting to the bottom of it..but his was a flat denial.”
Saudi Arabia is now changing its claims that it had nothing to do with the incident. Saudi officials are willing to say that Khashoggi was captured inside the consulate and then died during his interrogation.
CBS News is reporting that Saudi leaders are preparing to admit to the accidental killing of Khashoggi despite having denied that they harmed him or even knew of his disappearance from the consulate.
It would be in both the United States and Saudi Arabia’s best interest for the journalist to not have been killed by the Saudi Arabian government since Saudi Arabia is looking to buy weapons and the United States is looking to profit from it.
It would not look good for the United States to sell weapons to a country that kills journalists, so it makes sense that Trump would believe the King’s claims that they were not involved. What has critics puzzled is Saudi Arabian officials’ willingness to admit that Khashoggi died during interrogation, but that they had nothing to do with his kidnapping or actual murder.