The men who killed dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi flew on private jets owned by a company recently seized by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, CNN reported, citing documents viewed by the network.
The documents were reportedly labeled “Top Secret” and filed in connection to a Canadian civil lawsuit. In the documents viewed by CNN, a Saudi minister conveyed an order from the crown prince to “immediately approve the completion of the necessary procedures for” transferring ownership of the company, Sky Prime Aviation.
The document outlined a procedure by which the company’s ownership was to be transferred to the country’s sovereign wealth fund in 2017, which the crown prince chairs. The killers then used the jets to kill Khashoggi in October 2018, according to CNN.
Khashoggi died in Istanbul, Tukey, in 2018 after he was ambushed at the Saudi consulate and dismembered.
Mohammed bin Salman “would have been tracking [the company] and would’ve been aware of how it was used,” Dan Hoffman, the former director of the CIA’s Middle East Division, told the network. “And it’s just more potential evidence that he was in the know on this. Which has always been the contention. This is just more evidence of that.”
“Any evidence that basically ties [Mohammed bin Salman] and others, especially in a direct line way, which we believe this does, is extremely important,” Faisal Gill, who represents Khashoggi’s former fiancée in a federal lawsuit against the crown prince and several co-defendants, told CNN.
Numerous intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have concluded the crown prince ordered The Washington Post journalist’s killing.
Bin Salman has continued to deny giving the order, but has said he was “responsible” for Khashoggi’s death. The Biden administration is set to declassify a report on the killing in the near future, possibly as soon as this week.
President Biden is set to discuss the matter by phone with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman rather than his son, the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
The Hill has reached out to the Saudi embassy in Washington for comment.