US President Joe Biden said on Friday,15 July, that he raised the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
While addressing a press briefing in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after his meeting with Saudi Prince, Biden said, "With respect to the murder of Khashoggi, I raised it at the top of the meeting, making it clear what I thought of it at the time and what I think of it now."
"I made my views crystal clear. I said it very straightforwardly, for an American president to be silent on an issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am. I'll always stand up for our values," he added.
While answering a reporter's question regarding Saudi Prince's response to Khashoggi's murder, Biden said that "he basically said that he was not personally responsible for it. I indicated that I thought he was. He said he took actions against those who were responsible for it."
Biden's visit comes three years after he vowed to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah state" due to the murder of prominent dissident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The US intelligence agencies have previously accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for approving Khashoggi's murder.
On 2 October 2018, the 59-year-old journalist, who had gone into self-exile, was told by Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States to go to the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul to receive certain documents for his forthcoming marriage. He was strangled and his body cut into pieces by a group allegedly directed by a close aide to the prince. The intelligence report said it was a 15-member-team that executed him, of which seven of them were from the Rapid Intervention Force.
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