Saudis picked up drugs in Cairo used to kill Khashoggi: report

The team of Saudi assassins who allegedly killed Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi reportedly stopped in Cairo to pick up drugs they used to assassinate him, Yahoo News reported Monday.

Citing notes that summarized secret interrogations of the Saudi team of assassins, Yahoo reported that a Gulfstream jet stopped over in Cairo on Oct. 2, 2018, before ultimately landing in Istanbul. 

It is unclear what drugs were used to kill Khashoggi or who provided them to the assassins.

The revelation marks the first indication that the Saudi assassins had Egyptian accomplices in the killing of Khashoggi. This development also calls into question the Saudi government’s claims that the group had no intentions of killing Khashoggi prior to boarding the plan to Istanbul. Khashoggi is believed to have been killed and dismembered in the Saudi Consulate located in the Turkish city.

Saudi officials have claimed that Khashoggi’s death was a “rogue operation” carried out by a team that had been sent to persuade the Saudi national to return to the kingdom, according to the BBC. However, the CIA concluded in 2018 that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the killing.

At the time of his death, Khashoggi had been a prominent critic of the crown prince and his crackdown on internal conflicts within the royal family.

In April, the House passed legislation with bipartisan support restricting arms sales to Saudi Arabia in response to the killing of Khashoggi. 

President Biden in February vowed to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for Khashoggi’s death, issuing a round of punitive measures against the country following the release of an intelligence report linking Saudi Arabia to the assassination. However, Biden notably held off on issuing sanctions against the crown prince, with many observers stating that Biden likely did not want to endanger U.S.-Saudi relations.