CIA believes Saudi crown prince ordered journalist’s killing: sources

WASHINGTON: The Central Investigation Agency (CIA) believes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday, complicating President Donald Trump’s efforts to preserve ties with a key U.S. ally.

The sources said the CIA had briefed other parts of the US government, including Congress, on its assessment, which contradicts Saudi government assertions that Prince Mohammed was not involved.

The CIA’s finding, first reported by the Washington Post, is the most definitive U.S. assessment to date tying Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler directly to the killing.

Both the White House and the State Department declined to comment.

“The claims in this purported assessment is false,” a spokeswoman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington said in a statement. “We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the primary basis for these speculations.”

Trump and top officials of his administration have said Saudi Arabia must be held to account for any involvement in Khashoggi’s death, but they have also stressed the importance of the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

U.S. officials have said Saudi Arabia, a major oil supplier, plays an important part in countering what they see as Iran’s malign role in the region, and Trump has repeatedly said he does not want to imperil U.S. arms sales to the kingdom.

While the Trump administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on 17 Saudis for their role in Khashoggi’s killing, many lawmakers think the United States should take a tougher stance, and the CIA’s findings are likely to embolden that view.

Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government and a columnist for the Washington Post, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 when he went there to pick up documents he needed for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman.

Khashoggi had resisted pressure from Riyadh for him to return home. Saudi officials have said a team of 15 Saudi nationals were sent to confront Khashoggi at the consulate and that he was accidentally killed in a chokehold by men who were trying to force him to return to the kingdom.

Turkish officials have said the killing was intentional and have been pressuring Saudi Arabia to extradite those responsible to stand trial. An adviser to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday accused Saudi Arabia of trying to cover up the murder.

Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor said on Thursday that he was seeking the death penalty for five suspects charged in the killing. The prosecutor, Shalaan al-Shalaan, told reporters the crown prince knew nothing of the operation, in which Khashoggi’s body was dismembered and removed from the consulate.

U.S. officials have been skeptical that Prince Mohammed would not have known about plans to kill Khashoggi, given his control over Saudi Arabia.

The Post, citing people familiar with the matter, said the CIA’s assessment was based in part on a phone call the crown prince’s brother, Prince Khaled bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi.

Prince Khaled told Khashoggi 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, the Post said.

The newspaper, citing people familiar with the call, said it was not clear if the prince knew Khashoggi would be killed but that he made the call at his brother’s direction.

The prince said in a Twitter post on Friday that the last contact he had with Khashoggi was via text on Oct. 26, 2017, nearly a year before the journalist’s death.

“I never talked to him by phone and certainly never suggested he go to Turkey for any reason. I ask the US government to release any information regarding this claim,” Prince Khaled said.

The Post said the CIA also examined a call from inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul after Khashoggi’s killing.

Maher Mutreb, a security official who has often been seen at the crown prince’s side, made the call to Saud al-Qahtani, a top aide to Prince Mohammed, to inform him the operation had been completed, the Post said, citing people familiar with the call.

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Trump to discuss Khashoggi murder with Sec of State Pompeo, CIA

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said he had not yet been briefed on the CIA’s conclusions regarding the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but that he would speak with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the CIA about the issue later on Saturday.

The CIA believes Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de-facto ruler, ordered Khashoggi’s killing, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

But Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House before flying to California, also reiterated that he had been told the crown prince had not played a role in the journalist’s death.

“We haven’t been briefed yet,” Trump said. “We will be talking with the CIA later and lots of others. I’ll be doing that while I’m on the plane. I’ll be speaking also with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.”

Khashoggi, a critic of the crown prince, was killed in October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul when he went there to pick up documents he needed for his planned marriage.

Trump and top administration officials have said Saudi Arabia should be held to account for any involvement in Khashoggi’s death and have imposed sanctions on 17 Saudis for their role in the killing.

But they have also stressed the importance of Washington’s ties with Riyadh, even while US lawmakers have called on the administration to punish Saudi Arabia over the murder.

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Over 40 killed in attack on refugee base in Central African Republic

BANGUI: More than 40 people were killed and dozens wounded in Central African Republic in an attack on a Catholic mission sheltering 20,000 refugees, a regional lawmaker said.

The attack happened on Thursday in Alindao, a town 300 km (200 miles) east of the capital Bangui. Thousands of people were forced to flee when the mission was set on fire, the United Nations said.

 “We have counted 42 bodies so far, but we are still searching for others. The camp has been burnt to the ground and people fled into the bush and to other IDP (internally displaced person) camps in the city,” Alindao lawmaker Etienne Godenaha told Reuters.

A humanitarian source confirmed that more than 40 people were killed.

U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Central African Republic Najat Rochdi said in a statement: “This vicious cycle of repeated attacks against civilians is unacceptable.”

Read More: Eleven taxi drivers shot dead in South Africa

Thousands have died and a fifth of Central African Republic’s 4.5 million population have fled their homes in a conflict that broke out after mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted President Francois Bozize in 2013, provoking a backlash from Christian anti-balaka militias.

Depite electing a new leader in 2016, the country has continued to face political instability and tit-for-tat inter-communal violence.

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US Coast Guard seizes $500 million worth of cocaine

WASHINGTON: US authorities seized about 18.5 tons of cocaine with a street value of $500 million (389.50 million pounds) in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Friday.

The cocaine was taken off the Coast Guard cutter James in the Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday after it was confiscated from 15 drug smuggling vessels in the international waters, the Coast Guard said.

Multiple U.S. Coast Guard cutters helped seize the drugs of Mexico, Central and South America, it said.

Some 49 suspects were also arrested and will be prosecuted in southern Florida, the Miami Herald reported.

Cocaine remains one of the most popular illegal drugs in the United States, where most of the world’s cocaine is consumed, according to federal officials.

“There are troubling early signs that cocaine use and availability is on the rise in the United States for the first time in nearly a decade,” the U.S. State Department said in a global narcotics trade report in 2017.

Potential global cocaine output reached 1,410 tons in 2016, the highest level ever estimated, the United Nations said in a report on drugs and crime in 2018.

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UK’s May sees ‘no alternative’ to her Brexit plan

LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May says she sees no alternative to the Brexit deal she presented earlier this week, amid reports that some of her senior ministers want her to renegotiate the draft agreement before meeting EU leaders next weekend.

“There is no alternative plan on the table. There is no different approach that we could agree with the EU,” May wrote in an article for the Sun on Sunday newspaper.

“If MPs (legislators) reject the deal, they will simply take us back to square one. It would mean more division, more uncertainty and a failure to deliver on the vote of the British people,” she added.

Just hours after announcing on Wednesday that her senior ministers had collectively backed her divorce deal, May was thrust into her premiership’s most perilous crisis when Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab resigned on Thursday to oppose the agreement.

Other mutinous lawmakers in her party have openly spoken of ousting her and said the Brexit deal would not pass parliament.

Brexit supporters say the transitional deal risks leaving Britain subject to EU rules for an indefinite period.

On Saturday Andrea Leadsom, the minister in charge of government business in parliament, told the BBC that she was supporting May but was not fully happy with the deal.

“I think there’s still the potential to improve on the clarification and on some of the measures within it and that’s what I’m hoping to be able to help with,” she said.

Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said on Saturday that British pro-Brexit ministers were “not living in the real world” if they thought they could renegotiate the divorce treaty agreed with the EU last week.

Several British newspapers had reported that Leadsom was working with four other senior ministers and Brexit enthusiasts – Michael Gove, Liam Fox, Chris Grayling and Penny Mordaunt – to pressure May to change the deal.

Mordaunt, Raab, and five other top Conservatives – former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Raab’s predecessor David Davis, Interior Minister Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and Work and Pensions Minister Amber Rudd – are all “actively preparing” leadership campaigns, the Sunday Times said.

More than 20 Conservative lawmakers have written to call for May to go, and a total 48 requests are needed to trigger a leadership contest.

The Sunday Times also reported Britain’s army had been ordered to step up contingency plans to help police maintain public order in case of food and medicine shortages after a “no deal” Brexit, citing an unnamed “well-placed army source.”

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