The US foreign espionage agency assessed with “high confidence” that the prince was behind the death of the Post columnist, the newspaper reported on Friday evening citing “people familiar with the matter.”

Saudi Arabia initially denied that Khashoggi had been killed inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, where he was last seen on October 2. Eventually, however, Riyadh admitted the journalist had died on the premises, blaming it on a “fight” with officials sent to take him home. Khashoggi was living in self-imposed exile in Turkey, having become an outspoken critic of the crown prince.

Writing in the Post last month, Turkish president Recep Erdogan claimed that the order to have the dissident journalist killed “came from the highest levels of the Saudi government,” not naming the crown prince but seemingly implicating him.

Among the evidence examined by the CIA was a phone call between Khashoggi and the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Khalid bin Salman - the crown prince’s brother - who assured the journalist it was safe to go to the consulate, the Post reported. Ambassador bin Salman abruptly left Washington on October 11, and was not expected to return, according to reports by multiple media outlets, which were neither confirmed nor denied by Riyadh.

The CIA’s “purported assessment are false,” Fatimah Baeshen, a spokeswoman for the Saudi embassy in Washington, told the Post. “We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the primary basis for these speculations.”

DETAILS TO FOLLOW