US President Donald Trump fiercely defended Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday, insisting the Saudi crown prince did not know about the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, effectively contradicting an assessment by US intelligence agencies.

The controversy over the killing of Khashoggi, a US-based critic of the Saudi leadership, flared again 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.

US intelligence concluded that bin Salman approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler.

“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office with bin Salman sitting beside him. “Things happened, but he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.”

Bin Salman said it had been “painful” to hear about Khashoggi’s death but that his government “did all the right steps of investigation”.

“We’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that. And it’s painful and it’s a huge mistake,” he told reporters.