Donald Trump on Tuesday said that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, had nothing to do with the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, whose assassination in 2018 left the Saudi leader an international pariah.
But Trump’s own intelligence services, as well as a 2019 UN investigation, have painted a very different picture. The assassination took place inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where a 15-person team led by a close associate of Prince Mohammed was said to have drugged, murdered and dismembered Khashoggi in order to hide evidence of the crime.
“Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen,” Trump said when asked about the killing by a reporter during an Oval Office appearance with Prince Mohammed on Tuesday. “But [Prince Mohammed] knew nothing about it,” continued Trump. “And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”
That is not what the US Office of the director of national intelligence concluded in 2021, when a report by the agency laid the blame for Khashoggi’s death directly on Prince Mohammed, who on Tuesday made his first visit to the US since the assassination.
“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” the 2021 report read.
The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
The motive for Khashoggi’s murder was clear: the journalist was a leading critic of Prince Mohammed, who had amassed power under his ailing father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, as he sought to succeed him after his death.
When Khashoggi entered a Saudi consulate in Turkey in order to certify divorce papers, he was not aware that a 15-person team including members of Prince Mohammed’s elite personal bodyguard, as well as his close adviser Saud al-Qahtani, had been dispatched to capture or kill him. Inside, one of the men asked whether the “sacrificial animal” had arrived. “He has,” another answered.
What happened next became public only because Turkish spies had bugged the premises, allowing them to listen in as the hit squad prepared and then carried out the gruesome murder.
Inside the embassy, Khashoggi was told by Saudi officials that there was an Interpol warrant for his arrest and that he would be taken back to Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi protested before a struggle began in which he was overpowered.
“Assessments of the recordings by intelligence officers in Turkey and other countries suggest that Mr Khashoggi could have been injected with a sedative and then suffocated using a plastic bag,” read a report prepared by Agnès Callamard, who was the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
Before Khashoggi entered the consulate, a Saudi doctor was said to be describing an operation by which he would dismember Khashoggi’s body so it could be secretly transported out of the premises.
The process would “be easy”, the doctor said. “Joints will be separated. It is not a problem. The body is heavy. First time I cut on the ground. If we take plastic bags and cut it into pieces, it will be finished. We will wrap each of them.”
That is what took place next.
“Sounds of movement and heavy panting could be heard in the remainder of the recordings,” the UN report continued. “The sound of plastic sheets (wrapping) could also be heard.”
“The Turkish intelligence assessment identified the sound of a saw,” the report added.
Minutes later, CCTV cameras captured three men carrying plastic bin bags and at least one rolling suitcase carrying what investigators believed to be Khashoggi’s dismembered corpse.
The killing, which took place during Trump’s first term, caused a diplomatic crisis, but the US president is now seeking to boost the US’s relationship with the Saudis.
Prince Mohammed said it had been “painful” to hear about Khashoggi’s death, but that his government “did all the right steps of investigation”.
“We’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that. And it’s painful and it’s a huge mistake,” he told reporters.
Trump’s comments prompted a rebuke from Khashoggi’s widow. “Nothing [can] justify just a horrible crime,” Hanan Elatr told Reuters in an interview, adding that she wished the US president would meet her so that she could introduce him to the “real Jamal”.
Khashoggi’s widow also told US media that she still had not recovered her husband’s remains.
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• This article was amended on 19 November 2025. An earlier version incorrectly said King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was deceased.
