Donald Trump denies covering for Saudis as ‘Khashoggi death audio’ handed to US

US President Donald Trump says the US has asked Turkey for an audio recording of Jamal Khashoggi’s death which reportedly proves he was brutally tortured before his premeditated murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Turkish officials said the audio recording had been handed over to the US and Saudi Arabia. But on Wednesday, Trump told reporters: “We’ve asked for it … if it exists” – before adding that it “probably does” exist.

Trump had previously suggested he believes the denials of responsibility from the Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and warned against a rush to judgment.

Khashoggi disappearance: too much at stake to punish Saudi Arabia

On Wednesday, Trump denied he was covering up for the Saudi royals but at the same time pointed to their importance as strategic and commercial partners.

“I’m not giving cover at all. And with that being said, Saudi Arabia has been a very important ally of ours in the Middle East. We are stopping Iran,” he told reporters.

The president said he would get a “full report” from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the diplomat’s return from meetings with Saudi and Turkish leaders, allowing him to assess what really happened.

“We will probably know that by the end of the week,” Trump said.

The US president has been on the defensive ever since Khashoggi – a US resident and Washington Post contributor who had been critical of powerful Prince Mohammed – vanished on October 2 after visiting the Istanbul consulate.

Washington Post publishes last piece by Jamal Khashoggi

According to the latest reports, the Saudi journalist was assassinated by a squad that included agents tied to Prince Mohammed, a son of King Salman and a linchpin in the trend toward ever-tightening relations with Trump’s White House.

The controversy has blown a hole in Prince Mohammed’s bid to promote himself as the modern face of Saudi Arabia and led to a spate of cancellations by titans of global finance and business at a major Riyadh investment conference scheduled next week.

But Trump has downplayed the possibility of action against Saudi Arabia, which he has repeatedly praised as a major customer for the US weapons industry.

At one point he suggested “rogue killers” could be to blame for Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Earlier Wednesday, he told Fox Business that the US relies on the kingdom to fight terrorism.

Pompeo was also tight-lipped after meeting the Saudi leadership in Riyadh, telling journalists he did not want “to talk about any of the facts. They (Saudis) didn’t want to either.”

Adding to the picture of Saudi influence potentially weighing on American decision-making about Khashoggi, US media reported that US$100 million for Washington’s stabilisation efforts in Syria was deposited by the kingdom as Pompeo arrived in Riyadh.

Turkish police and forensic experts on Wednesday searched the residence of the Saudi consul in Istanbul and also searched the country’s consulate for a second time.

The consul, Mohammed al-Otaibi, left Istanbul for Riyadh on a scheduled flight Tuesday afternoon, with Ankara insisting he had not been expelled but left of his own choice.

Turkish police had on Monday night carried out an eight-hour search at the consulate, taking away soil and DNA samples.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who also met with Pompeo, said there was signs of an attempted cover-up in the Saudi consulate: police had found freshly painted walls and “toxic” substances during a search of the building.

Several US media outlets said Monday that the Saudis are preparing a report that Khashoggi’s death resulted from a botched interrogation, but there has yet to be any sign of this being published.

It said Otaibi can be heard on one tape saying during Khashoggi’s torture: “Do this outside. You are going to get me in trouble.”

The daily reported that in another tape, an unknown individual tells Otaibi: “If you want to live when you return to Saudi Arabia, be quiet!”

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Khashoggi was beheaded and his body was cut up, reports said.

A Saudi forensics specialist Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy can be heard putting on headphones to listen to music and telling others to do the same while the body was dismembered, according to the reports.

Investigators believe that after the killing, Khashoggi’s body was taken to the consul general’s house, where it was disposed of.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that a suspect identified by Turkey was a frequent companion of the prince’s. Three other suspects are linked to his security detail and a fifth is a high-level forensic doctor, The Times said.

Adding to embarrassment for the petro-state’s royals, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde became the latest to pull out of Prince Mohammed’s much-trumpeted investment conference next week. An IMF spokesman said she had postponed her planned trip to the Middle East with a stop in Saudi Arabia.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will decide Thursday whether he will attend the conference.

There was also new political pressure on Trump with nine senators from the opposition Democrats writing to express “significant concerns about conflicts of interest” between Trump and Saudi Arabia concerning deals done through his real estate empire.

The letter cited decades of business deals and asked Trump to provide information regarding recent and future financial ties to Saudi Arabia.

Trump defended himself on Monday, tweeting that “I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!”

The Guardian, Agence France-Presse