Somalia welcomes Saudi investigation into Khashoggi murder

[Deeq A.]

The Somali government has welcomed Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor efforts to prosecute the perpetrators of journalist Jamal Khashoggi murder.

Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post who had been living in the United States, has been missing since he entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2nd.

The journalist was confirmed to have been killed in the country’s Istanbul consulate by a lethal injection after a struggle, and his body was dismembered.

In a statement, the Somali government said it considers the move to be a step in the right direction to clarify the full truth about the circumstances of the case.

“The federal government of Somali welcomes the investigation announced by the public prosecution in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which took place the detainees in the case of the killing of the Saudi Citizen Jamal Khashoggi,” the statement reads in part.

The statement comes hours after the CIA linked Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the operation that claimed the life of the journalist.

The CIA concluded that Mohamed bin Salman ordered the assassination of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved in the killing, according to people familiar with the matter.

A team of 15 Saudi agents flew to Istanbul on government aircraft in October and killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate, where he had come to pick up documents that he needed for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman.

In reaching its conclusions, the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence.

Khalid told Khashoggi that he should go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so.

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