WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department recently rejected a proposal to train Saudi intelligence for fear it could be used to conduct other illegal work, The Washington Post said.
The newspaper said on its Web site on Friday that the rejection was caused by fears of the implementation of secret operations outside the law, such as the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi more than a year ago at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
What prompted State Department and CIA officials to reject the proposal by DynCorp, which provides security and military services to the US government, were reports that Saudi Arabia was continuing abuses including attempting to forcibly repatriate dissidents abroad, it said. Arrest of human rights activists, and surveillance of Khashoggi's family abroad.
The newspaper also said that US officials fear that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was not convinced of the need to reform the intelligence service and hold him accountable in order to stabilize the relationship between Washington and Riyadh.
She also noted that the US side is angry at, among other things, that former adviser to the Saudi Royal Court Saud al-Qahtani, who is close to bin Salman, has not been tried and continues to work behind the scenes, although the US Treasury considered him the organizer of the assassination of Khashoggi.