ISTANBUL, Oct 7, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Turkish police have concluded that
prominent Saudi journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the
Saudi mission in Istanbul after going missing Tuesday, according to an
unnamed government official.
“Based on their initial findings, the police believe that the journalist
was killed by a team especially sent to Istanbul and who left the same day,”
the official told AFP on Saturday.
It came hours after police confirmed that around 15 Saudis, including
officials, arrived in Istanbul on two flights on Tuesday and were at the
consulate at the same time as Khashoggi.
The Washington Post contributor had gone to the consulate on an
administrative errand but “did not come back out” of the building, police had
told the state-run Anadolu news agency.
On the back of the preliminary investigation, Ankara announced Saturday it
had opened an official probe into his disappearance.
The state-run Saudi Press Agency, quoting an unnamed official at the
Istanbul consulate, denied the reports of Khashoggi’s murder.
“The official strongly denounced these baseless allegations,” the agency
wrote, adding that a team of Saudi investigators were in Turkey working with
local authorities.
Reacting to the news of the alleged murder, the journalist’s Turkish
fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said on Twitter she “did not believe he has been
killed”.
In his opinion articles, Khashoggi has been critical of some policies of
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Riyadh’s intervention in the war
in Yemen.
The former government adviser, who turns 60 on October 13, has lived in
self-imposed exile in the United States since last year to avoid possible
arrest.
– ‘We have nothing to hide’ –
Press freedom campaigners condemned reports of Khashoggi’s possible murder,
with the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists demanding Riyadh
give “a full and credible account” of what happened to him inside the
consulate.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Twitter that if reports of
Khashoggi’s death were confirmed, “this would constitute a horrific, utterly
deplorable, and absolutely unacceptable assault on press freedom”.
Prince Mohammed earlier denied in an interview with Bloomberg that the
journalist had been inside the consulate and said Turkish authorities could
search the building, which is Saudi sovereign territory.
“We are ready to welcome the Turkish government to go and search our
premises,” he said, adding that “we will allow them to enter and search and
do whatever they want to do… We have nothing to hide”.
In the interview published Friday, the Saudi crown prince also said he
understood that Khashoggi had entered the consulate but then “got out after a
few minutes or one hour”.
“We are investigating this through the foreign ministry to see exactly what
happened at that time,” he added.
According to his fiancee Cengiz, Khashoggi had visited the consulate to
receive an official document for his marriage.
Turkey’s foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned Saudi Arabia’s ambassador
over the issue.
– ‘Reasoned criticism’ –
Khashoggi fled the country in September 2017, months after Prince Mohammed
was appointed heir to the throne, amid a campaign that saw dozens of
dissidents arrested, including intellectuals and Islamic preachers.
The journalist said he had been banned from writing in the pan-Arab daily
Al-Hayat, owned by Saudi prince Khaled bin Sultan al-Saud, over his defence
of the Muslim Brotherhood which Riyadh has blacklisted as a terrorist
organisation.
He has also criticised Saudi Arabia’s role in Yemen, where Riyadh leads a
military coalition fighting alongside the government in its war with Iran-
backed rebels.
The Washington Post chose to leave a blank space where Khashoggi’s column
would have been in its Friday edition in support of the missing writer.
In an article published by Al-Jazeera this week, journalist and analyst
Bill Law described Khashoggi as “a brilliant journalist with a fiercely
independent mind but with sufficient pragmatism to know just how close to the
red lines he could go”.
“His is a voice of reasoned criticism and wise comment that the Saudi crown
prince should listen to,” wrote Law, who said he had known Khashoggi for 16
years.
Saudi Arabia, which ranks 169th out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index
issued by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), has launched a modernisation
campaign since Prince Mohammed’s appointment as heir to the throne.
But the ultra-conservative kingdom, which won plaudits in June for lifting
a ban on women driving, has drawn heavy criticism for its handling of
dissent.
Khashoggi’s criticism of Prince Mohammed’s policies have appeared in both
the Arab and Western press. In a March 6 Guardian editorial co-authored with
Robert Lacey, he wrote: “For his domestic reform programme, the crown prince
deserves praise. But at the same time, the brash and abrasive young innovator
has not encouraged or permitted any popular debate” on the changes.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1110 hrs