SPA
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman met Jamal Khashoggi's son in Riyadh.
- Salah Khashoggi, the son of Jamal Khashoggi, who was brutally murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, has released a statement thanking Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman for his generosity and humanity.
- The younger Khashoggi praised MBS and said justice soon would be done, while appearing to absolve Saudi royalty of any wrongdoing.
- The statement follows the US identifying 16 Saudis it believes were involved in the murder and barring them from traveling to the US.
- The Khashoggi family reportedly received houses from the Saudi government following the death of their father.
Salah Khashoggi, the son of Jamal Khashoggi, who was brutally murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, has released a statement thanking Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman for his generosity and humanity, while promising the country would soon mete out justice for his father.
This follows the CIA concluding with "high confidence" that Crown Prince Mohammed had the elder Khashoggi murdered as revenge for his dissent towards the kingdom.
In a strange statement, which makes use of non-standard English formulations, the younger Khashoggi appears to absolve Saudi royalty of any wrongdoing.
"Jamal Khashoggi was a respectable journalist and a patriotic Saudi Citizen. The recent attempts to smear his legacy and draw friction are ill and immoral," he wrote.
"The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz and the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are considered and regarded as guardians to all Saudis," he wrote, using the formal titles for the kingdom's ruler and crown prince.
"Acts of generosity and humanity come from the high moral grounds they possess, not admission of guilt or scandal," he continued, adding that it was his family's custom to thank people for acts of good.
Here the younger Khashoggi may be referring to multi-million dollar houses he and his family have reportedly received from the kingdom following their father's death.
"We understand the urge to know what transpired regarding the case; and we will be sharing the developments as soon as they are legally admissible and allowed," he wrote. "Currently; the trial is taking place and no settlement discussion had been or is discussed. The people who committed and were involved in this crime will all be brought to justice and face punishment."
Saudi Arabia ignited a firestorm of criticism from media outlets after the death of Khashoggi. A constantly changing narrative from the Saudis, who first claimed Khashoggi left, then claimed he attacked them and was killed in self-defense, and finally settled on blaming the murder on rogue agents, fueled the media frenzy.
Khashoggi's statement comes just days after the US publicly designated 16 individuals it says played a role in the murder, preventing them and their their immediate family members from entering the United States.
Khashoggi's statement mirrors one from President Donald Trump, in which he ignored the mountain of evidence against the Saudi royalty and insisted the world would never truly know what happened.
Read more: Trump's manic statement letting Saudi Arabia off the hook for Khashoggi reveals a dark US secret
While Congress and many businesses called for the US to cut ties with Saudi Arabia - specifically US support to Saudi Arabia in Yemen - little has changed in the US's relationship to the theocracy.
Recently, Saudi Aramco, the country's state-owned oil firm, debuted a bond which became ten times oversubscribed with $100 billion in orders, a clear sign that the world of finance still stands behind the kingdom.