President Donald Trump is rejecting calls to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia following the disappearance and probable murder of the Saudi-born Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post is reporting the Turkish government told US officials it has audio and video evidence that Khashoggi was killed last week inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Officials say the recordings confirm that a Saudi security team detained Khashoggi after he walked into the consulate on October 2 before killing him and dismembering his body. We speak with Ro Khanna, Democratic Congressmember from California. He is calling for congressional hearings into Khashoggi’s disappearance. Khanna has been a leading critic of US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
TRANSCRIPT:
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We begin today’s show with the shocking disappearance and probable murder of the Saudi-born Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post is reporting the Turkish government told U.S. officials it has audio and video evidence that Khashoggi—in English, Jamal Khashoggi–was killed last week inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Officials say the recordings confirm that a Saudi security team detained Khashoggi as he walked into the consulate on October 2nd before killing him and dismembering his body. The full audio and video recordings have not yet been released. One person with knowledge of the audio recording told The Washington Post “You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic. You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered.”
Khashoggi had written critically about the Saudi government and the Saudi crown prince, MBS—Mohammed bin Salman. He fled Saudi Arabia last year and had been living in Virginia. The Washington Post has also…