Trump plays down Khashoggi murder as Saudis visit

Donald Trump has shrugged off the Saudi regime's murder of Jamal Khashoggi, saying the Washington Post columnist was "extremely controversial" and unpopular.

- Julian Borger

The US president made the remarks at the White House yesterday while welcoming Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the first time since Khashoggi's murder and dismemberment in Istanbul by Saudi state operatives in 2018.

US intelligence agencies made a formal assessment that the prince had ordered the killing but Trump insisted yesterday that "he knew nothing about it".

The president castigated the ABC News journalist who asked a question about the murder, suggesting that the broadcaster should lose its licence and describing Khashoggi as "extremely controversial". "A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happened, but he knew nothing about it," Trump said, referring to the crown prince.

Prince Mohammed said: "It's painful and it's a huge mistake, and we are doing our best that this doesn't happen again." Shortly before the two men appeared on national television for a rambling press conference, Khashoggi's widow went on the MS Now news channel to call for the investigation into her husband's murder to continue.

"It is very painful, very heavy," she said of the crown prince's arrival in the US. Demanding the return of her husband's body, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi said there was "unfinished business".

The US president sought to highlight promised Saudi investment in the US economy which was billed at the start of the White House meeting as totalling $600bn (£456bn), but which the prince said at Trump's prompting could ultimately hit $1tn.