The widow of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi called on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to apologize in person on Tuesday (November 18th) after he called the 2018 killing a “huge mistake” during a meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House.
“The crown prince said he was sorry, so he should meet me, apologize and compensate me for my husband’s murder,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi wrote on X.
MBS calls killings ‘painful’ and ‘huge mistake’
During his first visit to the White House in seven years, MBS said Saudi Arabia had “taken all the right steps” to investigate Khashoggi’s death.
“It’s painful and it’s a huge mistake,” the crown prince said, adding that the kingdom was “doing everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The journalist, Washington Post columnist and outspoken critic of the Saudi leadership, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by Saudi agents.
Trump defends MBS
President Donald Trump denied US intelligence assessments that the crown prince likely approved the killing, instead offering to defend MBS.
“Whether you like him or not, things happen,” Trump told reporters, insisting he “knew nothing about it.”
He went further to describe Khashoggi as “extremely controversial”, saying: “A lot of people didn’t like the gentleman you’re talking about… but he (the prince) didn’t know anything about it.”
Trump praises MBS’s human rights record
Despite worldwide condemnation of the killing, Trump praised the crown prince’s leadership and his rights.
“We have an extremely respected man in the Oval Office today … a very good friend of mine,” Trump said.
“I’m very proud of the work he’s done. What he’s done is incredible in terms of human rights and everything else.”
US intelligence had previously implicated the crown prince
Declassified US intelligence findings released in 2021 concluded that MBS likely approved the operation targeting Khashoggi. The Trump administration refused to release the findings during Trump’s first term.
Khashoggi’s murder threw US-Saudi relations into disarray, and the operation was widely condemned as a state-sanctioned killing of a dissident.
