US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Mohammed bin Salman knew nothing about the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, offering a fierce defense of the visiting Saudi crown prince that contradicted a US intelligence assessment.

The controversy over the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and US-based critic of the Saudi leadership, flared again in the Oval Office in front of cameras as the kingdom's de facto ruler made his first White House visit in more than seven years, seeking to further rehabilitate his global image tarnished by the incident.

Trump later announced that he was designating Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally, and the two sides announced agreements on arms sales, civil nuclear cooperation, artificial intelligence, and criti

See Full Page