US President Joe Biden made his first visit to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the future king. The American president held him responsible for the high-profile murder of opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018.
According to CNBC, after being criticized for meeting with the heir and warmly congratulating him, Biden said he raised the issue of the journalist's murder.
"As for Khashoggi's murder, I raised this issue at the beginning of the meeting. I made my point very clear. I said very bluntly, as the American president. To be silent about human rights is incompatible or contrary to who we are and who I am, he said. — Salman said that he was not personally responsible for the murder of Khashoggi, but I insisted that I considered him so. What happened to Khashoggi was outrageous."
Opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared on October 2, 2018, after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. Turkish intelligence services said the journalist was strangled as soon as he entered the building, after which his body was dismembered and destroyed. According to the CIA, the order to kill Khashoggi was given by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman al Saud.
In 2019, Saudi prosecutors announced that five people were sentenced to death for Khashoggi's murder, and later received different prison terms.
On February 26, 2021, US intelligence released a report confirming once again that Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, personally approved the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
