The Biden administration will release an intelligence report as early as Thursday that concludes that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, three U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.

The intelligence assessment, based largely on work by the CIA, is not new; NBC News was among the organizations that confirmed it in 2018.

A declassified version of a U.S. intelligence report expected to be released on Thursday finds that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, four U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.

The officials said the report, for which the CIA was the main contributor, assessed that the crown prince approved and likely ordered the murder of Khashoggi, whose Washington Post column had criticized the crown prince’s policies.

The Biden administration is poised to release a declassified version of an intelligence report that concludes that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, according to a report.

Four US officials told Reuters that the report — for which the CIA was the main contributor — found that MBS likely ordered the murder of the 59-year-old Washington Post columnist, who was dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

A Saudi court issued final verdicts on Monday in the case of slain Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi after his son, who still resides in the kingdom, announced pardons that spared five of the convicted individuals from execution.

Five people have been sentenced to death in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but the two most senior officials implicated in the murder were cleared of wrongdoing because of "insufficient evidence," Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor announced Monday.

The convicted defendants have not been named. Three others were sentenced to jail terms totaling 24 years.

Khashoggi, who wrote opinion columns for the Washington Post, was killed after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. He was one of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s most prominent critics.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Monday sentenced five people to death and three more to jail terms totaling 24 years over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year.

Saudi Deputy Public Prosecutor and spokesman Shalaan al-Shalaan, reading out the trial verdict, said the court dismissed charges against the remaining three of the 11 people that had been on trial, finding them not guilty. None of the defendants’ names was immediately released.

(CNN)Saudi Arabia has sentenced five people to death for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi but cleared a former top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a public prosecutor said Monday.

The United States on Tuesday barred from entering the country Mohammed al-Otaibi, who served as the Saudi consul general in Istanbul when Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in his consulate in 2018, the US State Department said.

"The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was a heinous, unacceptable crime," the State Department said in a statement, adding that it continued to urge the Saudi government to conduct a "full, fair and transparent" trial to hold accountable those responsible for the journalist's death.

(Reuters) - Some members of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family and business elite have expressed frustration with the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the largest-ever attack on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure last month.

United Nations, New York - The fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the United Nations official who investigated his killing made an impassioned plea for justice on Thursday, days before the first anniversary of his death.

Hatice Cengiz, who was preparing to marry Khashoggi when he was killed in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul on October 2 last year, complained that "no concrete action" had been taken since the incident to identify and prosecute his killers.