‘Last image’ of missing Saudi reporter published
ISTANBUL: The Washington Post published a surveillance image showing its missing Saudi contributor walking into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul a week ago, just before he disappeared. Turkish officials have said they fear the columnist was killed there.
Saudi Arabia has described the allegations that it killed writer Jamal Khashoggi as “baseless”, but has offered no evidence over the past seven days to show that he ever left the building.
The image released by the Post yesterday bore a date and time stamp, as well as a Turkish caption bearing Khashoggi’s name and that he was arriving to the consulate.
The Post said “a person close to the investigation” shared the image with them, without elaborating.
The door Khashoggi walked in through appeared to be the main entrance of the consulate in Istanbul’s 4th Levent neighbourhood, a leafy, upscale district near the city’s financial hub that is home to several other consulates.
However, the consulate has other entrances and exits as well, through which Saudi officials insist he left.
It is unclear which camera the footage came from or who operated it. However, a number of closed-circuit surveillance cameras surround the area.
Friends of Khashoggi say Turkish police have taken possession of footage from the neighbourhood as part of their investigation.
The Saudis have offered no surveillance footage or evidence to corroborate their claims, nor have Turkish authorities offered proof to show why they believe the columnist was killed there.
“If the story that was told about the murder is true, the Turks must have information and videotapes and other documents to back it up,” Fred Hiatt, the Post’s editorial page editor, said.
“If the story the Saudis are telling, that he just walked out ... after half an hour, if that’s true, they ought to have facts and documents and evidence and tapes to back that up.”
Hiatt added that the “idea of a government luring one of its own citizens onto its own diplomatic property in a foreign country to murder him for the peaceful expression of his views would be unimaginable”.
Khashoggi, 59, went missing while on a visit to the consulate in Istanbul for paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancee. He had been living since last year in the United States in self-imposed exile, in part due to the rise of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of King Salman.
Khashoggi has written extensively about Saudi Arabia, including criticising its war in Yemen, its recent diplomatic spat with Canada and its arrest of women’s rights activists.