Rula Jebreal: My “Secret Interview” with Jamal Khashoggi Before His Brutal Murder by the Saudis

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has directly accused Saudi Arabia of the premeditated murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was last seen alive entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in Turkey on October 2. Erdogan said a team of Saudi officials had planned Khashoggi’s murder days in advance, directly contradicting Saudi Arabia’s claim that Khashoggi died after a fight in the consulate. Turkish officials have claimed that audio and video recordings show Saudi officials used a bone saw to dismember Khashoggi’s body, but Erdogan made no mention of the audio and video recordings of the killing. Fallout from Khashoggi’s murder is being felt across the globe. We speak with Rula Jebreal, a journalist, author and foreign policy analyst who conducted one of the last known interviews with Khashoggi. She says calling Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a reformer is “like calling David Duke a civil rights activist.” Her new cover story for Newsweek is titled “Jamal Khashoggi Secret Interview: The Saudi Journalist’s Views of Islam, America and the 'Reformist' Prince Implicated in His Murder.”