Minister Freeland calls for a ‘credible and transparent’ probe into Saudi dissident’s death

Open this photo in gallery:

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says Canada is pressing for “a credible and transparent investigation” into the death of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in which “names have to be named and responsibility has to be borne.”

“Those responsible must be named, they have to be called to account, they have to bear full responsibility for this. That is something that, speaking for Canada, we are insisting on,” Ms. Freeland said in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Friday morning.

Mr. Khashoggi, a Saudi expatriate who is a U.S. resident, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul more than 17 days ago, and Turkish reports on leaked details from an investigation in Turkey have said he was killed and dismembered in the building. Saudi Arabia has denied the allegation, and has pursued its own investigation. Late on Friday, the Saudi government issued a statement acknowledging that Mr. Khashoggi, was dead, which it had previously denied – and that he had died in a fight in the consulate, a claim inconsistent with the Turkish probe.

“There’s a lot of information that has been made public, and the direction that that is pointing is extremely worrying,” Ms. Freeland said before the release of the Saudi statement. “This is extremely serious, and it’s important to be absolutely sure of the facts, and absolutely sure of who is responsible.

“But the amount of time it takes to have that certainty can also not be infinite.”

Ms. Freeland would not say whether she believes either the Turkish or Saudi investigations will deliver the degree of credibility and transparency Canada wants to see. She also declined to comment specifically on calls for the United Nations to launch an independent probe.

“We’re talking to Turkey, we’re talking to Saudi Arabia and we’re talking to our allies more broadly. There’s a very close co-ordination and very close conversation among key NATO and key G7 allies on this issue,” she said.

“Canada comes into those conversations not with fixed views about the specific means or format, but with fixed views about where we need to end up,” she said.

She declined to outline what sanctions or other actions Canada would be prepared to take against Saudi Arabia if an investigation were to conclude that the Saudi government was behind the death. But she hinted that there would be significant consequences for the Saudis.

“It’s important not to get into hypotheticals,” she said. “But when I say, ‘Real and serious responsibility,’ I mean real and serious responsibility.”

With a report from Reuters