Nearly a year after the death of Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman broke his silence and said that he gets all the responsibility of the murder because it happened under his watch.
In an interview to Frontline correspondent Martin Smith, MBS insisted that he had no knowledge of the murder of the US resident. "It happened under my watch. I get all the responsibility, because it happened under my watch,” the Saudi leader told Smith.
When questioned as to how the murder could have happened without him knowing, MBS replied, "We have 20 million people. We have 3 million government employees." Smith asked him if the employees could take his planes, to which the crown prince replied that he has officials and they are responsible. "They have the authority to do that,” he added.
Last year in October, Khashoggi disappeared from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and was later pronounced dead. Later, Khashoggi's body was discovered dismembered. His remains have not been found.
Turkish officials, CIA and some Western governments believe that the crown prince is behind the journalist’s murder as there have been several breakthroughs in the investigation, nearly each one pointing at Saudi Arabia and its senior figures.
However, Riyadh refuted any such involvement of their crown prince and officials. In one of its statements, the kingdom said that Khashoggi was murdered as a result of a ‘rogue operation'.