SAUDI JOURNALIST KILLED AT CONSULATE, SAY COPS
ISTANBUL: Turkish police believe that prominent Saudi journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi mission here after he went missing on 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 said 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 “The official strongly denounced had gone to the consulate on these allegations,” the an administrative errand agency wrote, adding but “did not that the Saudi investigators come back out” of the were in building, police said. Turkey working with
On the back of the local authorities. preliminary investigation, Reacting to news of Ankara announced the alleged murder, on Saturday the journalist’s Turkish it had opened an official fiancee, Hatice probe into his Cengiz, said on Twitter disappearance. she “did not believe
The state-run Saudi he has been Press Agency, quot- killed”. ing an unnamed offi- Khashoggi has been cial at the Istanbul consulate, de- critical of some policies of Saudi nied the reports of Khashoggi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin murder. Salman and Riyadh’s intervention in the war in Yemen. He has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since last year to avoid possible arrest.
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 said if reports of Khashoggi’s death were confirmed, “this would constitute a horrific, utterly deplorable, and absolutely unacceptable assault on press freedom”.