By Laura McBride
On October 2nd, a journalist from Saudi Arabia entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in order to gain documents regarding marital status. Jamal Khashoggi never exited the consulate.
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS.
On October 2nd, a journalist from Saudi Arabia entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in order to gain documents regarding marital status. Jamal Khashoggi never exited the consulate.
Jamal Khashoggi is a prominent journalist from the controversial Arabic nation. During his career, he covered the most important stories in the Middle East, including writing about the rise of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. His knowledge of politics and international relations led to him becoming an adviser to King Abdullah. Following his appointment as editor-in-chief of Saudi Arabia’s leading English language newspaper, Arab News, Khashoggi became a valued asset to the reporting of Middle Eastern affairs in the West. He began writing comment articles for the Washington Post in 2017, revealing his fears regarding his country’s ongoing corruption scandals and the wave of arrests made by the Saudi authorities against anti-government journalists and activists. He moved to America shortly beforehand in self-imposed exile, fearing for his safety due to his position amongst the high-profile intelligentsia that was targeted. Khashoggi never openly described himself as a dissident of the Saudi regime, but was critical of the ruling family’s foreign policy decisions, which included diplomatic war against Qatar and intervention in Yemen’s civil war.
Khashoggi visited the Istanbul consulate in order to obtain documents confirming his divorce from his ex-wife on September 28th, but was told to return in order to make sure that the documents were correct. He arrived for this second appointment on October 2nd at 13:14 local time, leaving his fiancée Hatice Cengiz outside with two mobile phones and instructions to contact an adviser of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan should he not return. Cengiz called the police four hours after he entered the consulate, and did not leave the site until ten hours after his initial entrance.
Saudi Arabia claimed that Khashoggi had simply left out of a back door not long after he arrived. However, CCTV footage shows him entering the building but not leaving it. Instead, several black vans with diplomatic licence plates drove to the consul’s residence not far from the consulate. These black vans allegedly contained fifteen Saudi Arabian agents, flown from Riyadh on private planes.
Turkish officials believe that the group of agents include the president of the Saudi Fellowship of Forensic Pathology, Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy, who specialises in collection of DNA samples from crime scenes. They also state that the group brought a bone saw into the country, but all identified Saudis have left Turkey.
Yeni Safak, a pro-government newspaper in Turkey, released recordings allegedly detailing the ordeal of Khashoggi. These recordings suggest that Khashoggi was interrogated, tortured, and murdered.
Turkish officials were allowed into the consulate on October 16th along with a group of Saudi officials to inspect the building, and did so for nine hours. They entered the building after Saudi officials and cleaners were seen going into the consulate. On Wednesday, Turkish investigators entered the residence of the Saudi Consul General Mohammad al-Otaibi after he left the country on a commercial plane on Tuesday. It’s feared that parts of Khashoggi’s body were dumped at the Consul General’s house by the diplomatic vehicles seen arriving there just hours after Khashoggi’s initial disappearance. al-Otaibi has since been relieved of his post.
In the meantime, international pressure has built up on Saudi Arabia to come clean about what happened to Khashoggi, including a joint statement between British, French and German foreign ministers, Jeremy Hunt, Jean-Yves Le Drian and Heiko Maas. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Saudi Arabia and Turkey in order to discuss the situation, meeting with both Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, current king of Saudi Arabia, and President Erdogan of Turkey, who informed him that parts of the consulate had been freshly painted before the Turkish inspection of the building.
Three of the fifteen Sauds were identified as being part of the Royal Guard for the House of Saud, and are directly answerable to Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the current ruler of Saudi Arabia, which suggests that Khashoggi’s abduction and murder was on his personal orders. The United Nations has called for consulate officials to lose their diplomatic immunity in order to answer questions on the matter.
At the time of publishing, Jamal Khashoggi has not been found.
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