Turkey’s Yeni Safak, a newspaper that supports President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, published an editorial on Friday by its most energetic columnist, editor-in-chief Ibrahim Karagul, warning that war will erupt across the Middle East if Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) remains in power after allegedly ordering the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
“So, Saudi is going to execute five people and be done with it! That’s not going to happen; it’s going to be very difficult to get the prince out of this. A regional war is going to break out if the two crown princes don’t go! If the secret deals are disclosed, it will cause unrest on Arab streets,” Karagul thundered.
That was not the first paragraph of his op-ed. That was the headline.
Karagul was not thrilled by Thursday’s release of the Saudi prosecutor’s preliminary report on the Khashoggi murder, and he was not impressed by the death sentences sought against five suspects. On the contrary, he saw the capital charges as merely Saudi Arabia’s attempt to cover Crown Prince Mohammed’s tracks by liquidating everyone who could connect him to the “murder network” that killed Khashoggi.
In Karagul’s opinion, Turkish investigators have pushed the Saudi monarchy into a tight spot:
The Riyadh administration that initially denied everything is now, bit by bit, confessing and owning up to the crime in every statement it makes. You will see, in their next statement, they are going to own up to a lot more. As the evidence is revealed, they are going to step back and have no other choice but to own up.Supposedly a fight broke out and that is why they killed him. Supposedly the head of the squad that went there made the decision to kill him and they could not convince him out of it. None of this makes sense. The men came from Saudi Arabia to Istanbul to kill, to dismember, to destroy the body – and they brought all the equipment necessary to do this along with them.The decision to murder him was made in Riyadh; the instruction to kill was received from the crown prince’s office or from him, and the entire team is composed of the crown prince’s close men, high-level executives. The Intelligence and security are under his control anyway. They would not dare go from Riyadh to Jeddah without the crown prince knowing. READ MORE
