The Saudi and American governments are desperately trying to protect Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from accountability in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Both are trying to use the members of the hit team sent to Istanbul as scapegoats.

The Saudis announced that the trials of 11 individuals involved in the murder are ready, and five of them will be charged with the death penalty. The announcement is another change of story by Riyadh. First it denied Khashoggi was dead and insisted that he had freely left the consulate on Oct. 2. Then it claimed that he died in a fistfight. Then it was characterized as a premeditated murder ordered by the deputy chief of Saudi intelligence. Now it is supposedly a rendition attempt that went amiss and that Khashoggi was deliberately given an overdose of drugs. The team then lied to the deputy chief of Saudi intelligence to cover up their botched mission. An unnamed local collaborator assisted in disposing of the body.

None of these accounts add up, especially the latest. They don’t explain why the hit team brought bone saws and other devices to dismember a body — devices that were reported on in the Turkish press. They don’t explain why the head of the hit team called the royal palace to report the murder — another report leaked by the Turkish authorities. They don’t explain why a supposedly “rogue” team of assassins could commandeer a Saudi Consulate to conduct a murder. They don’t identify the mysterious collaborator.

The Saudi accounts reflect a government that is desperately trying to protect the heir apparent. The Khashoggi murder is only the latest in a long line of reckless decisions by the crown prince, starting with the disastrous intervention in Yemen’s civil war that has created the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our time. It is a farcical attempt at a whitewash.