The US president says he still wants to get to the bottom of what happened to the 60-year-old writer
DONALD Trump has said it "certainly looks" like missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead and threatened "severe" consequences if Saudi royals are to blame.
The US president didn't say what he based his statement on but that he still wanted to get to the bottom of what exactly happened to the 60-year-old writer.
Trump was asked by reporters before boarding Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland if he believed Khashoggi to be dead.
He responded: "It certainly looks that way to me. It's very sad."
Trump said he was waiting for details from "about three different investigations so we can get to the bottom of" Khoshoggi's disappearance.
Asked what the consequences would be if Saudi leaders were linked to his disappearance, he said: "Well, it'll have to be very severe.
"I mean, it's bad, bad stuff, but we'll see what happens."
Khashoggi did not reappear from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he went to collect documents for his planned marriage more than two weeks ago.
Turkish officials have said they believe the journalist, a critic of Saudi rulers, was murdered inside the building and his body chopped up and removed.
Turkish sources say the authorities have an audio recording indicating Khashoggi, a US resident who wrote columns for the Washington Post, was killed.
The Saudis have strongly denied the allegations but US media outlets have reported they will acknowledge he was killed in a botched interrogation.
Trump has speculated without providing evidence that "rogue killers" could be responsible.
Earlier, he cast doubt on the existence of audio that allegedly revealing how Khashoggi was executed and chopped into pieces.
Trump also refused to say whether the FBI is probing the disappearance of the Virginia resident, stating: “He’s not a citizen of this country.”
In an interview with the New York Times on Thursday, Trump also expressed confidence in intelligence reports that suggest a high-level Saudi role in the suspected killing of Khashoggi.
Trump said, however, it was still "a little bit early" to draw definitive conclusions about who may have been behind it.
It comes after a Turkish official claimed there was evidence Khashoggi had been tortured to death at the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul.
A source claims to have heard a recording from the writer's Apple Watch capturing the moment he was allegedly dragged into a study and butchered.
But Trump said he hasn’t heard of the audio footage “if it exists”.
He said in the Oval Office yesterday: “We have asked for it, if it exists. I’m not sure yet that it exists... probably does, possibly does.”
In the alleged recording, it’s claimed Khashoggi - a Saudi journalist based in the US - can be heard screaming as he's dragged from the Consul General’s office to a desk in next door study.
The anonymous source told the Middle East Eye: "There was no attempt to interrogate him. They had come to kill him."
Meanwhile, The New York Times named Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb - assigned to the Saudi London embassy in 2007 - as a suspect.
A leaked surveillance photo shows Mutreb, a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage, walking into the consulate just before Khashoggi.
He has been photographed in the background of Prince Mohammed's trips to the U.S., France and Spain this year.
Turkish officials say he flew into Istanbul on a private jet along with an "autopsy expert" on October 2, the same day Khashoggi disappeared, and left that night.
Saudi Arabia, which initially called the allegations "baseless," has not responded to repeated requests for comment over recent days, including on Thursday over Mutreb's identification.
Mutreb could not be reached for comment.
But Mutreb's appearance at the consulate, as well as later at the consul general's residence, adds to the growing pressure on Saudi Arabia amid international outrage over the mystery.
In a further sign of that pressure, US. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will not attend an investment conference in Saudi Arabia, as did senior government officials from France, Britain and the Netherlands.
Several top business executives have also cancelled plans to attend, as has the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde.
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