NEW VERSION FROM SAUDIS
Official says 15-man team tried to convince journo to return home, but situation turned ugly when he resisted
AS Saudi Arabia faced intensifying international scepticism over its story about the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a senior government official laid out a new version of the death inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul that in key respects contradicts previous explanations.
The latest account, provided by a Saudi official who requested anonymity, includes details on how the team of 15 Saudi nationals sent to confront Khashoggi on Oct 2 had threatened him with being drugged and kidnapped, and then killed him in a chokehold when he resisted.
A member of the team then dressed in Khashoggi’s clothes to make it appear as if he had left the consulate.
Turkish officials suspect the body of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of powerful Crown Prince Mo- hammed Salman, was cut up, but the Saudi official said it was rolled up in a rug and given to a “local cooperator” for disposal.
Asked about allegations that Khashoggi had been tortured and beheaded, he said preliminary results of the investigation did not suggest that.
The Saudi official presented what he said were internal Saudi intelligence documents, which appeared to describe an initiative to bring dissidents home to Saudi Arabia, including the specific one involving Khashoggi.
He also showed testimony from those involved in what he described as the 15-man team’s cover-up, and the initial results of an internal probe.
This narrative is the latest Saudi account that has changed multiple times.
Asked why the government’s version of Khashoggi’s death kept changing, the official said the initial account was based on “false information reported at the time”.
“Once it became clear, these initial mission reports were false, it launched an internal investigation and refrained from further public comment,” the official said, adding that the investigation was continuing.
United States President Donald Trump said on Saturday he was not satisfied with Saudi Arabia’s handling of Khashoggi’s death, and said questions remain unanswered. Germany and France on Saturday called Saudi Arabia’s explanation incomplete.
According to the latest version of the death, the government wanted to convince Khashoggi, who moved to Washington a year ago fearing reprisals for his views, to return to the kingdom as part of a campaign to prevent dissidents from being recruited by the country’s enemies.
To that end, the official said, the deputy head of the General Intelligence Presidency, Ahmed al-Asiri, put together a 15member team from the intelligence and security forces to go to Istanbul, meet Khashoggi at the consulate, and try to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia.
“There is an order to negotiate the return of dissidents peacefully; which gives them the authority to act without going back to the leadership,” the official said.
“Asiri is the one who formed the team and asked for an employee who worked with (senior royal adviser Saud) al-Qahtani, and who knew Jamal from the time they both worked at the embassy in London,” he said.
The official said Qahtani, who worked for the crown prince, had signed off on one of his employees conducting the negotiations.
According to the plan, the team could hold Khashoggi in a safe house outside Istanbul for “a period of time”, but then release him if he ultimately refused to return to Saudi Arabia.
Things went wrong from the start as the team overstepped their orders and quickly employed violence, the official said.
Khashoggi was ushered into the consul-general’s office, where an operative named Maher Mutreb spoke to him about returning to Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi refused and told Mutreb someone was waiting outside for him and would contact the Turkish authorities if he did not reappear within an hour, the official said.
Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, had said he had handed her his two mobile phones and left instructions that she should wait for him and call an aide to Turkey’s president if he did not reappear.
Inside the consul’s office, according to the official’s account, Khashoggi told Mutreb he was violating diplomatic norms and said, “What are you going to do with me? Do you intend to kidnap me?”
Mutreb replied, “Yes, we will drug you and kidnap you”, in what the official said was an attempt at intimidation that violated the mission’s objective.
When Khashoggi raised his voice, the team panicked. They moved to restrain him, placing him in a chokehold and covering his mouth, according to the government’s account.
“They tried to prevent him from shouting but he died. The intention was not to kill him,” the official said.
Asked if the team had smothered Khashoggi, the official said: “If you put someone of Jamal’s age in this position, he would probably die.”
To cover up their misdeed, the team rolled up Khashoggi’s body in a rug, took it out in a consular vehicle and handed it over to a “local cooperator” for disposal, the official said, and forensics expert Salah Tubaigy tried to remove any trace of the incident.
Turkish officials have said Khashoggi’s killers may have dumped his remains in Belgrad Forest adjacent to Istanbul, and at a rural location near Yalova city, 90km south of Istanbul.
Turkish investigators are likely to find out what happened to the body “before long”, a senior official said. The Saudi official said the local cooperator was an Istanbul resident, but would not reveal his nationality.
Meanwhile, operative Mustafa Madani donned Khashoggi’s clothes, eyeglasses and Apple watch, and left through the back door of the consulate in an attempt to make it look like Khashoggi had walked out of the building. Madani went to the Sultanahmet district, where he disposed of the belongings.
The official said the team then wrote a false report for superiors saying they had allowed Khashoggi to leave once he warned that Turkish authorities could get involved and that they had promptly left the country before they could be discovered.
Sceptics have asked why so many people, including military officers and a forensics expert specialising in autopsies, were part of the operation if the objective was to convince Khashoggi to return home.
The official said all 15 team members had been detained along with three local suspects.