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WORLD NEWS Friday 28 december 2018
Saudi king orders Cabinet shakeup after Khashoggi’s killing

wad as adviser to the royal and programming body Post before he was killed.
court. Khalid al-Harbi was that was led by Saud al- After denying any knowl-
named as head of general Qahtani, a close aide to edge of Khashoggi’s death
security. the crown prince who was for weeks, Saudi authori-
Turki al-Sheikh, a confi- fired from his post and sanc- ties eventually settled on
dant of the crown prince, tioned by the U.S. Treasury the explanation that he
was removed as head of Department for helping to was killed in an operation
the Sports Authority and mastermind the plot that masterminded by former
replaced by Prince Abdu- led to Khashoggi’s killing. advisers to Prince Moham-
laziz bin Turki al-Faisal. This Khashoggi wrote critically med. The kingdom denies
means al-Sheikh no longer of the crown prince in col- the crown prince had any
oversees a cybersecurity umns for The Washington involvement.q

In this Dec. 9, 2018 file photo, released by the state-run Saudi
Press Agency, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,
left, speaks to his father, King Salman, at a meeting of the Gulf
Cooperation Council in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Associated Press
By AYA BATRAWY nomic Forum in Davos. He
Associated Press served as finance minister
DUBAI, United Arab Emir- under King Fahd and King
ates (AP) — Saudi Ara- Abdullah.
bia’s King Salman issued a Al-Assaf sits on the boards
wide-ranging overhaul of of oil-giant Saudi Aramco
top government posts on and the kingdom’s sov-
Thursday, including naming ereign wealth fund. The
a new foreign minister, fol- crown prince oversees
lowing international fallout both entities. He holds a
from the killing of Saudi writ- Ph.D. in Economics from
er Jamal Khashoggi nearly Colorado State University
three months ago. and a master’s degree
He also ordered a shakeup from the University of Den-
of the kingdom’s supreme ver, according to his biog-
council that oversees mat- raphy on Aramco’s web-
ters related to security. The site.
council is headed by the Al-Assaf had been serv-
king’s son, Crown Prince ing as a minister of state
Mohammed bin Salman, last year when he was re-
whose powers including portedly detained at the
roles as deputy prime min- Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh
ister and defense minister, along with dozens of high-
were untouched in the ranking officials and princ-
overhaul. It may also sig- es in an anti-corruption
nal further efforts to show sweep led by the crown
that changes are being prince. Shortly after, al-
made after the U.S. Senate Assaf appeared back at a
passed a resolution saying Cabinet meeting to the sur-
it believes the crown prince prise of many. The govern-
is to blame for Khashoggi’s ment did not name those
grisly murder inside the Sau- detained nor disclose what
di consulate in Istanbul. crimes they were suspect-
As the crown prince strug- ed of committing. The As-
gles to convince many sociated Press could not
in Washington and other independently confirm
Western capitals that he reports of al-Assaf’s arrest.
had nothing to do with The opaque anti-corrup-
Khashoggi’s killing, the soft- tion sweep helped Prince
spoken Adel al-Jubeir was Mohammed consolidate
replaced as foreign min- power and net the govern-
ister by Ibrahim al-Assaf, a ment more than $13 billion
longtime former finance in settlements.
minister. Al-Jubeir was ap- The changes announced
pointed to minister of state Thursday include aides to
for foreign affairs at the For- the crown prince, including
eign Ministry. Musaed al-Aiban as na-
Al-Assaf is well known to tional security adviser — in
international investors, hav- addition to other positions
ing led several Saudi del- he holds — and former me-
egations to the World Eco- dia minister Awwad al-Aw-