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Turkey to quiz more witnesses in Khashoggi probe: report
ISTANBUL, Oct 21, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Turkish prosecutors have summoned more
witnesses to testify as part of the investigation into the death of
journalist Jamal Khashoggi, local television reported Sunday.
Twenty-five more people will be quizzed as witnesses, the private NTV
broadcaster said, without providing any further details.
On Friday, prosecutors questioned staff members of the Saudi Arabian
consulate in Istanbul inside Istanbul’s main courthouse, including the
consulate driver, technicians and accountants.
Early on Saturday Saudi Arabia finally admitted that Khashoggi, a critic of
the Saudi leadership and a Washington Post contributor, was killed inside the
kingdom’s Istanbul consulate.
For more than two weeks they had insisted that he left the building alive.
Turkish police and prosecutors this week searched both the consulate and
the consul’s residence in Istanbul, as well as a large forest in the city,
hunting for his body.
Turkish media outlets have reported that the authorities here have audio
tapes in which Khashoggi’s alleged killers tortured him by cutting his
fingers off before his decapitation.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and top government figures have remained
cautious in their public statements, stopping short of pinning the blame on
Saudi Arabia and referring instead to the prosecutors’ investigation.
After the Saudi admission on Saturday, Omer Celik, spokesman for Erdogan’s
ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said Ankara was not putting the
blame on anyone in advance.
But they would not accept any cover-up, he added. “Turkey will reveal
whatever had happened. Nobody should ever doubt it,” he said.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1909 hrs