Washington: The Saudi embassy in Washington has dismissed suggestions the kingdom hacked the phone of Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, as media reports linked the security breach to a WhatsApp message from an account of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The 2018 intrusion into the device led to the release of intimate images of Amazon founder Bezos, whose Post newspaper employed as a contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist murdered later that same year at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul. "Recent media reports that suggest the Kingdom is behind the hacking of Mr Jeff Bezos' phone are absurd," the Saudi Arabian embassy said on its Twitter account on Tuesday.