"Not a steaming pistol, but a smoking saw": the US Senate announced the undoubted involvement of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in the murder of Khashoggi

US senators concluded that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Muhammad Ben Salman Al Saud was directly related to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This was reported by CNN with reference to the results of the meeting in the US Congress.

CIA Director Gina Haspel conducted a closed briefing about the circumstances of the murder of a Saudi journalist in the territory of the Saudi Arabia General Consulate in Istanbul. According to the results of the briefing, the Republican senators said they intend to speak out both against Saudi Arabia and the White House administration, which was too calmly responded to the murder of a journalist ..

Bob Corker from Tennessee and Lindsay Graham from South Carolina intends to blame the murder of the hereditary prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman, as well as advocate restriction of the US participation in the Saudi Arabia war in Yemen. “This is not a steaming pistol, this is a smoking saw,” Graham said, referring to information that the “detachment of killers”, who arrived from Saudi Arabia, included a forensic expert with the equipment for the dismemberment of the Hashoggi body.

According to him, to the conclusion that the murder was organized and carried out under the control of the prince, "only the blind will come." Graham said that he could no longer deal with Saudi Arabia and could not maintain sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia, led by a "crazy" crown prince. Senator Bob Corker added that the prince ordered the murder and controlled him, and the jury "would require no more than half an hour" to endure the verdict about his guilt.

“Someone must be punished,” said Republican representative Richard Shelby. "But how to separate the Saudi Crown Prince and his group from the nation itself? Now is this a question primarily political." Apparently, the results of a briefing in the CIA will significantly complicate the work of the White House, where they are clearly not ready to deteriorate relations with the prince and Saudi Arabia, but one way or another should react to the murder of a journalist, taking measures at the legislative level.

In addition to restricting the participation of the United States in the war in Yemen, such measures could be a ban on the sale of weapons of Saudi Arabia, as well as the introduction of sanctions against the Crown Prince and the issuance of a resolution that the Senate considers him an accomplice in the murder. What exactly the measures will be taken as a result is unknown, but the debate on this subject can begin on Monday and cause resistance to the White House administration.

“It is time for the United States to get out of this war,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a democrat from Connecticut, who supports a two -party resolution urging the US participation in Yemen. In his opinion, the senators still did not reveal the whole truth about the role of the Crown Prince in the case of Khashoggi, and many issues that have yet to be resolved are connected with the problem of Yemen.

It is also noted that the CIA should have informed the entire Senate, since only about a dozen senators from among the party leadership, who are sitting in key committees, visited a briefing on Tuesday. As one of the members of the Senate Chuck Schumer said, the briefing proved the need for a more serious response to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

“Each senator must hear what I heard this afternoon,” said the democrat from Illinois Richard Durbin. According to the Republican from Louisiana John Kennedy, who did not participate in a briefing, the decision of the Hospel about the briefing "in a narrow circle" angered everyone. Hespel herself did not answer the question of whether the whole Senate will be informed about the results of the CIA investigation.

Some senators also emphasized the need to find a balanced answer. "We must find a way to condemn the massacre and murder as effectively as possible without blowing up the Middle East," said John Kennedy. “The Senate needs help, and I am open to all suggestions on how to do it.”

The brutal murder of Khashoggi, the famous critic of the Crown Prince, caused condemnation from the entire international community, including many politicians and officials in the United States. The Prosecutor General of Saudi Arabia said that the Crown Prince did not know anything about the murder , but it recently became known that the incident could prevent Muhammad Ben Salman Al Saudu to become king . His competitor can be the 76-year-old uncle of the Crown Prince Ahmed Ben Abdulaziz, the support of which over the past weeks was informally stated by high-ranking US officials.

On October 29, The Daily Express, the British radio electronic intelligence service in the UK, found out about the prepaid Saudi Arabia abduction of Khashoggi three weeks before its murder . A source in intelligence told the publication that the order came from a member of the royal family, but not from the heir to the throne.

In addition, it became known that the journalist discussed plans to createa youth network movement for counter -propaganda against the authorities of Saudi Arabia. In correspondence with the Saudi activist Omar Abdulaziz Khashoggi, he called the prince a "beast" and a computer character Packman. “The more victims he eats, the more he wants,” the journalist wrote about the prince. “I won’t be surprised if the repressions come even to those who support him.”

As part of the creation of the "Electronic Army" it was supposed to send a large number of SIM cards to Saudi Arabia, which would be impossible to track: this would allow the opposition to publish messages on Twitter. Khashoggi also promised to ensure the initial financing of the project in the amount of 30 thousand dollars and enlist the support of rich sponsors. However, in August, correspondence with Khashoggi was supposedly intercepted by the Saudi special services and could become one of the reasons for the murder of a journalist.