Former Saudi ambassador to the US has termed the CIA reports on the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi as baseless and unreliable. The CIA earlier concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the brutal killing of a Jamal Khashoggi. Turki al-Faisal, a senior Saudi prince said the track record of the CIA confirms it is unreliable.
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“The CIA is not necessarily the highest standard of veracity or accuracy in assessing situations. The examples of that are multitude,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, a senior member of the royal family, told journalists in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.
Turki al-Faisal, who earlier led the Saudi intelligence, pointed toward the CIA’s 2003 intelligence that led to the disastrous war in Iraq where hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed and no weapons of mass destructions were ever found.
“That was the most glaring of inaccurate and wrong assessments, which led to a full-scale war with thousands being killed,” he said, speaking at an event hosted by the Beirut Institute think tank.
“I don’t see why the CIA is not on trial in the United States. This is my answer to their evaluation of who is guilty and who is not and who did what in the consulate in Istanbul.” The incriminating comments came just weeks after the CIA revealed its finding into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October.
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Last week, US President Donald Trump glossed over the CIA’s reported conclusion that the MBS had sanctioned the murder. “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump said, implying MBS’ culpability in Khashoggi’s killing at the Saudi consulate.
