Turkish Paper Reports CIA Has Recording of Saudi Crown Prince Calling for Jamal Khashoggi to be Silenced

The CIA reportedly has a recording of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman calling for Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi to be silenced before he was brutally murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey.

The report comes via the Turkish English-language paper Hurriyet which quotes columnist Abdulkadir Selvi.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is in possession of a phone call recording of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in which he is heard giving an instruction to “silence Jamal Khashoggi as soon as possible,” Hürriyet columnist Abdulkadir Selvi wrote on Nov. 22.

According to Selvi, CIA Director Gina Haspel “signaled” during her trip to Ankara last month the existence of the wiretapped phone call between Crown Prince Mohammed and his brother Khaled bin Salman, who is Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

A Turkish official, however, told Reuters that he had no knowledge of such a recording.

Khashoggi was murdered on Oct. 2. This week, Trump signaled that he would not punish Saudi Arabia or the Crown Prince for Khashoggi’s killing.

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