NY Times Editorial Board Calls Out Saudi Response to Khashoggi Murder: MBS ‘Knows What Really Happened’ and ‘Who Did It’

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The New York Times editorial board called out Saudi Arabia’s response to the global outcry over the execution of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Thursday, alleging Prince Mohammad bin Salman “knows what really happened and who did it.”

In an article titled, “The Khashoggi Cover-Up Goes On,” the Times editorial board wrote “all the evidence unearthed since Mr. Khashoggi, who was living in self-imposed exile in the United States, was throttled and dismembered inside the consulate leaves little doubt that the powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the hit, and that a team of operatives flew to Turkey to carry it out.”

“The fact that two organizers of the execution, Prince Mohammed’s close adviser Saud al-Qahtani and the former deputy head of intelligence, Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, were acquitted for lack of evidence serves only to make the convictions less credible,” the board declared. “But then it is reasonable to assume that the goal was not to put on a convincing trial, much less a fair one.”

“Prince Mohammed knows what really happened and who did it, and after the storm of international censure and revelations since Mr. Khashoggi’s death on Oct. 2, 2018, he must understand that beheading the executioners — if that’s who have been sentenced to death — will not make his culpability go away,” they continued, adding, “There is nothing to show that Prince Mohammed has been humbled by the global outcry over the murder.”

The editorial board also noted President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s “chummy relationship with the prince,” before concluding, “nobody should mistake Prince Mohammed for the benign reformer he once pretended to be.”

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