ISTANBUL -- Saudi Arabia's foreign minister denied on Sunday that the kingdom's crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, had any prior knowledge of an operation that resulted in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi and said that the agents involved "weren't people closely tied" to the crown prince.
"This was an operation that was a rogue operation," Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Fox News. "This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had. They made a mistake when they killed Jamal Khashoggi.
"Even the senior leadership of our intelligence service was not aware of this," al-Jubeir added, marking the first public comments by a senior Saudi official since early Saturday, when authorities in Riyadh announced they had arrested 18 people and fired five top officials in connection with the journalist's death.
Al-Jubeir said Saudi Arabia does not know where Khashoggi's body is and that officials have not listened to an audiotape Turkey claims proves Khashoggi's torture, killing and dismemberment.
Jubeir spoke shortly after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday he will soon be revealing details of his government's investigation into the killing of Khashoggi, a move that could directly contradict Saudi Arabia's official account of what happened inside its consulate in Istanbul.
Erdogan said he would be explaining the episode "in a very different way" when his ruling party meets on Tuesday, adding to the already intense global pressure Saudi leadership has faced to provide a full picture of how Khashoggi was killed.
"We seek justice and this will be revealed in all its naked truth, not through some ordinary steps but in all its naked truth," Erdogan said, according to the semiofficial Anadolu news agency. "The incident will be revealed entirely."
Turkey and Saudi Arabia have been at odds over what happened inside the consulate ever since Khashoggi, a U.S.-based Washington Post contributing columnist and critic of the Saudi monarchy, disappeared there on Oct. 2.
Turkish authorities almost immediately concluded Khashoggi was deliberately targeted by a 15-man squad of Saudi agents who killed and dismembered him inside the diplomatic mission. The authorities said their conclusions are based on audio recordings from inside the consulate that provide a clear account of how Khashoggi was killed.
Saudi Arabia denied any knowledge of his fate for two weeks. On Saturday, the kingdom changed course dramatically, announcing that a preliminary investigation found that Khashoggi was killed after a fistfight inside the consulate.
Saudi prosecutors said 18 people had been arrested and five top officials fired for their connection to the case. Two of the dismissed officials were among Mohammed's closest advisers.
"Why did those 15 people come [to Istanbul]; why were 18 people arrested [in Saudi Arabia]?" Erdogan said Sunday. "This should be explained in full detail."
Erdogan's comments came after a spokesman for his party said Saturday that Turkey would not allow a coverup of Khashoggi's death. Taken together, it suggests Turkey's president is seeking to increase his leverage over the Saudis and President Donald Trump's administration, which has tried to protect its Saudi allies.
Meanwhile, Istanbul's chief prosecutor summoned 28 more staff members of the Saudi consulate, including Turkish citizens and foreign nationals, to give testimony today, Turkish state broadcaster TRT reported. Prosecutors have previously questioned consulate staff; some Turkish employees reportedly said they were instructed not to go to work around the time that Khashoggi disappeared.
The Anadolu news agency reported Sunday that Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, has been given 24-hour police protection.
Also Sunday, images that were obtained by TRT World, a Turkish news channel that broadcasts in English, that showed Khashoggi as he arrived at a police barrier before entering the consulate on Oct. 2. The images, taken from security camera video, show the writer being searched before continuing toward the building.
Seeking to contain the international fallout, which has included calls for a transparent independent investigation and a host of nations and corporations pulling their participation in a high-profile investment conference in Saudi Arabia this week, Jubeir said the shifting Saudi account of what happened was a result of a coverup by the arrested agents.
"They told us that he left the consulate," Jubeir said. "They came back to Saudi Arabia; they filed a report to that effect."
A public prosecutor launched his investigation after "discrepancies" between the agents' report and the reports coming out of Turkey, which Jubeir said revealed that the team had falsified its report.
"The individuals who did this took this outside the scope of their authority. Obviously, it was a tremendous mistake made. And what compounded the mistake was their attempt to cover up."
Jubeir added, "This is an aberration, this is a mistake, this is a criminal act, and those responsible for it will be punished."
SAUDI DECEPTION
The arrests in Saudi Arabia did little to ease intense global pressure on Mohammed, whose self-styled image as a modernizing reformer has been tarnished by Khashoggi's killing. The Saudi explanation has also been met with skepticism by European nations and U.S. lawmakers who have expressed concern that the Saudi investigation is solely designed to shield Mohammed from any culpability.
Trump initially said the Saudi explanation of Khashoggi's death was credible. But in an interview with The Post late Saturday, Trump conceded that "there had been deception." Still, he defended Saudi Arabia as an "incredible ally" and expressed hope that Mohammed was not involved.
Trump has strengthened ties with Saudi Arabia, which he sees as an essential player in advancing his Middle East policy. In the Washington Post interview he stressed again the importance of Saudi Arabia to his policy of pressuring Iran -- a regime he described as "evil." Trump also says the incident shouldn't jeopardize U.S. weapon sales to Saudi Arabia or other potential investments, which he says are worth a total of $450 billion.
Trump said it was a concern that Khashoggi's body is missing but reiterated that the journalist's killing shouldn't affect broader ties with the kingdom
The killing has sparked bipartisan outrage in Congress over Saudi Arabia's role, creating a divide between Capitol Hill and the White House ahead of November's mid-term elections.
Senior Republicans and Democrats proposed sanctions on the longtime U.S. ally, the expulsion of the Saudi ambassador and the cutting of arms sales, among other possible punishments. Lawmakers also said that the United States should refuse to have relations with Mohammed and demand that Saudi Arabia replace him as crown prince if he is found to be responsible -- as members of both parties said they believe will happen.
"It's my thinking that MBS was involved in this, that he directed this and that this person was purposefully murdered," Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., in an appearance on CNN's State of the Union Sunday, referring to the crown prince.
Corker -- who chairs the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee -- called for a "collective response" by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany if an investigation reveals that the crown prince was behind Khashoggi's killing inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
During an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said the Saudi ambassador should be formally expelled from the United States if an investigation reveals the crown prince's involvement. The suggestion echoed a call from Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., a day earlier.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said on Fox News Sunday that he was certain that Mohammed was responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance and death, reasoning that "there's no way 15 people are sent from Saudi Arabia to Turkey to kill a dissident without the approval of the crown prince."
Paul recommended curtailing arms sales to Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi's killing and other aggressive ventures, arguing on Fox News Sunday that "that's the only thing the Saudis will listen to."
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called the moment "a relationship-altering event for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia."
"We ought to suspend military sales, we ought to suspend certain security assistance, and we ought to impose sanctions on any of those that were directly involved in this murder," Schiff said on ABC's This Week. "This really ought to be something that causes us to do a re-examination of our relationship with Saudi Arabia."
Britain, Germany and France issued a joint statement condemning the killing of Khashoggi, saying there is an "urgent need for clarification of exactly what happened."
In the statement Sunday, the governments said attacks on journalists are unacceptable and "of utmost concern to our three nations." They said the "hypotheses" proposed so far in the Saudi investigation need to be backed by facts to be considered credible.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin on Sunday that she supports a freeze on arms exports to Saudi Arabia.
Information for this article was contributed by Tamer El-Ghobashy, Carol Morello, Peter Holley, Felicia Sonmez, Karoun Demirjian and Missy Ryan of The Washington Post; by Christopher Torchia and Zeynep Bilginsoy of The Associated Press; and by Marc Champion and Saleha Mohsin of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 10/22/2018