'Could it be them? Yes', says Donald Trump

Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump has said Saudi Arabia could be behind the disappearance of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi and warned Washington would inflict "severe punishment" if he was murdered.

The Saudi critic has not been seen since he walked into the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2, with Turkish officials accusing Riyadh of murdering him inside the diplomatic mission.

"If true, the fact that a journalist was murdered was terrible and disgusting... We're going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment," Trump told CBS's 60 Minutes programme, according to an extract of an interview that was released on Saturday. "As of this moment, they deny it and they deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes," Trump said.

Jamal Khashoggi. Pics/AFP

He added the matter was especially important "because this man was a reporter." He said he would be "very upset and angry if that were the case", but ruled out halting big military contracts.

He said there were "other ways of punishing" than cancelling military contracts, which powers like Russia and China were interested in. "I don't want to hurt jobs, I don't want to lose an order like that."

Saudi in denial
The kingdom's interior minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud Naif bin Abdulaziz condemned reports that the journalist was murdered as "lies and baseless allegations".

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever