Saudi crown prince says he is responsible for Khashoggi killing ‘because it happened under my watch’

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a new interview said he takes responsibility for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi “because it happened under my watch.”

The crown prince will speak publicly for the first time about Khashoggi’s killing in a PBS documentary scheduled to broadcast next week, the network’s “Frontline” reported.

{mosads}“It happened under my watch,” he told PBS’s Martin Smith. “I get all the responsibility, because it happened under my watch.”

The CIA and Western governments have asserted the crown prince directed the killing, but Saudi leaders have denied the connection.

When Smith inquired about how Khashoggi could have been killed without his knowledge, the prince responded by saying “we have 20 million people. We have 3 million government employees,” according to the PBS report.

Smith then asked if the 15-person team involved in Khashoggi’s death has permission to take the crown prince’s plane, and he responded that “they have the authority to do that.”

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was critical of the royal family, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He was reportedly dismembered and taken out of the building.

Officials in Riyadh at first denied any Saudi participation in the killing before saying rogue operatives committed the act.  

The documentary “The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia” will air Oct. 1, the day before the one-year anniversary of the journalist’s death.