Saudi Arabia reportedly plans to admit Khashoggi was murdered and use top general close to crown prince as a scapegoat

Saudi critic and journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been missing for 15 days, but Saudi Arabia has yet to offer a credible explanation.
Saudi Arabia initially denied knowledge of Khashoggi's whereabouts but now reportedly plans to admit to his murder.
Saudi officials plan to scapegoat a two-star general and say he botched a plan to interrogate Khashoggi and accidentally killed him, The Daily Beast reported.
A separate
The Times indentified him as
The narrative falls in line with US President Donald Trump's suggestion earlier this week that "rogue killers," not the Saudi leadership, are to blame Khashoggi's disappearance.
Foreign-policy experts have called the story "ludicrous in the extreme."
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Saudi Arabia reportedly plans to admit that missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi agents, but will put the blame on a rogue general acting beyond his authority.

The Daily Beast on Tuesday reported that Saudi officials plan to pin Khashoggi's death on an unnamed Saudi two-star general, citing two anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

The report said the general is "new to intelligence work," seemingly setting up his inexperience as part of the reason for killing Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who often criticized the Saudi government.

A separate report from The New York Times, published on Thursday, suggests the general in question is a top intellgence official who has close ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Times indentified him as

This all comes as Turkish officials reportedly offered gruesome details to support their conclusion that Khashoggi was killed minutes after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

A Turkish investigator searching the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul where the journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared. BusinessInsider

According to Turkey's pro-government Daily Sabah newspaper, Al Jazeera Arabic — a TV channel funded by Saudi rival Qatar — reported on Tuesday that Khashoggi was beaten, drugged, and eventually killed in the Saudi consul general's office, citing unnamed Turkish investigators.

A Saudi autopsy expert, Salah Mohammed al-Tubaigy, advised other Saudis to listen to music while he dismembered Khashoggi's body in the consulate, Al Jazeera reported, according to Sabah.

Surveillance footage published by Turkish newspaper Hurriyet purports to show Khashoggi entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. BusinessInsider

Riyadhs reported blame game

According to The Daily Beast, Saudi officials plan to say the unnamed general secured approval from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to interrogate Khashoggi.

The report said he was given authority to extract information about Khashoggi's alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — an Islamist political faction — and financial ties to Saudi rival Qatar.

According to Riyadh's potential narrative, the general improvised a plan to send Khashoggi from Turkey to Saudi Arabia, but botched it and killed him instead, The Daily Beast reported.

The Daily Beast's report said Saudi officials would claim he then lied to his superiors about what happened.

This explanation could allow Saudi officials — including Prince Mohammed — to stick to their initial position of denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's whereabouts shortly after he was reported missing.

Protesters hold signs saying "Free Jamal Khashoggi" outside Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate last week. BusinessInsider

The narrative falls in line with recent reports

The narrative about the two-star general was published after CNN reported on Monday that Saudi Arabia was preparing a report on Khashoggi's disappearance, in which the kingdom would claim that Khashoggi was killed as a result of a botched interrogation that was conducted without clearance or transparency.

That report has not yet been released.

The story outlined by The Daily Beast also falls in line with US intelligence intercepts, reported by The Washington Post, that Prince Mohammed had wanted to lure Khashoggi from his home in Virginia to Saudi Arabia.

US President Donald Trump on Monday also appeared to exonerate the Saudi leadership from responsibility for Khashoggi's whereabouts, suggesting that "rogue killers" could instead be responsible for the journalist's disappearance.

Jamal Khashoggi at an event hosted by Middle East Monitor in London on September 29. BusinessInsider

Ludicrous in the extreme

Foreign-policy experts, however, have poured cold water on the narrative.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official now at the Brookings Institution, told The Daily Beast: "It's ludicrous in the extreme. Saudi Arabia doesn't work that way. They don't freelance operations."

Barbara Bodine, a retired US ambassador to Yemen, also told the news site: "If this is a rogue operation, the rogue is MBS," using Prince Mohammed's initials.

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The Khashoggi crisis is dividing Trump and Congress

Trump has seemed hesitant to blame the Saudi leadership for Khashoggi's disappearance and said last week that halting billions of dollars' worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi would "be punishing ourselves."

Trump also emphasized that Khashoggi was "not a US citizen." (Khashoggi held a green card.)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is visiting Saudi Arabia and Turkey this week to hear the two countries' sides of the story.

Trump tweeted on Tuesday that Prince Mohammed, with Pompeo by his side, "totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish Consulate."

Lawmakers in Congress, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, are taking a firmer line against Saudi Arabia.

Many foreign-policy experts told Business Insider last week that the Khashoggi case could create tension between Trump and the GOP foreign-policy establishment in Congress.

Saudi Arabia reportedly plans to admit Khashoggi was murdered and use top general close to crown prince as a scapegoat

Riyadhs reported blame game

The narrative falls in line with recent reports

Ludicrous in the extreme

The Khashoggi crisis is dividing Trump and Congress

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