Saudi crown prince said he’d use ‘a bullet’ on Khashoggi

A U.S. intelligence intercept indicates that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman considered killing Jamal Khashoggi more than a year before Saudi operatives strangled the dissident journalist at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October, then dismembered his body.

In 2017, the crown prince told a top aide that he would use “a bullet” on Mr. Khashoggi if he did not return to the kingdom and stop criticizing it, according to current and former American officials.

Details: The conversation appears to have been recently transcribed as part of an effort to find proof of who was responsible for Mr. Khashoggi’s death. The crown prince tells the aide that Mr. Khashoggi, who became a Washington Post columnist around the same time, should be lured back to Saudi Arabia or returned by force, and if that failed, he would go after him “with a bullet.” The C.I.A. has concluded that the crown prince ordered the killing, but President Trump has downplayed the evidence of his role.