(MENAFN) British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss evaded a barrage of questions from legislators on Tuesday about her government's equivocal stance on Saudi Arabia's poor human rights record, while calling the monarchy as a "partner."
Truss was grilled by Labor MP Chris Bryant during a foreign affairs committee meeting regarding the Arab Kingdom's human rights record.
When asked if Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was to blame for the death of dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, Truss simply stated that Saudi Arabia is an "important partner of the United Kingdom."
Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist who was murdered and mutilated by a Saudi hit squad in the kingdom's Consulate in Istanbul in 2018, was a vociferous opponent of the Saudi monarchy and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The CIA found that the assassination was ordered by Saudi Arabia's de facto leadership.
The senior British diplomat's dismal attempts to deflect questions about Khashoggi's heinous murder come only days after she stated that London needed to be a "robust counterweight to authoritarian regimes."
“Eighty-one executions in one day in Saudi Arabia, and you don’t think that’s an authoritarian regime?” Bryant pressed, mentioning the execution of 81 people in Saudi Arabia in a single day in March.
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