Saudi ‘killed by murder team’
Turkey
Turkish investigators have concluded that Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent journalist from Saudi Arabia, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul earlier this week by a Saudi team sent ‘‘specifically for the murder’’, according to two sources.
Turkish investigators believed a 15-member team ‘‘came from Saudi Arabia. It was a preplanned murder’’, said one of two sources who wished to remain anonymous.
They offered no specific evidence to back up the account. However, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency said earlier on Saturday that the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office were investigating Khashoggi’s disappearance. Turkish authorities have said that Khashoggi never left the consulate.
Saudi Arabia had vehemently denied that Khashoggi, who also contributed to The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section, was detained after he entered the mission.
In an interview with Bloomberg last week, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Khashoggi had left the consulate shortly after he arrived on Tuesday. Saudi officials have yet to provide any evidence for that assertion.
The Saudi consul-general in Istanbul allowed Reuters reporters to tour the consulate on Friday, to show that Khashoggi was not inside.
‘‘I would like to confirm that . . . Jamal is not at the consulate nor in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the consulate and the embassy are working to search for him,’’ the consul-general, Mohammed al-otaibi, was quoted as saying.
The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.
United States officials did not immediately comment on the Turkish conclusions. The conflicting accounts appeared certain to deepen a rift between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both regional powers that have competed for influence in the region.
The killing, if confirmed, would mark a startling escalation of Saudi Arabia’s effort to silence dissent. Under direction from the crown prince, Saudi authorities have carried out hundreds of arrests under the banner of national security, rounding up clerics, business executives and even women’s rights advocates.
‘‘If the reports of Jamal’s murder are true, it is a monstrous and unfathomable act,’’ Fred Hiatt, the director of The Post’s editorial page, said.
‘‘Jamal was – or, as we hope, is – a committed, courageous journalist. He writes out of a sense of love for his country and deep faith in human dignity and freedom. He is respected in his country, in the Middle East and throughout the world. We have been enormously proud to publish his writings.’’
Khashoggi might have been considered especially dangerous by the Saudi leadership, analysts said. His criticisms of the royal family and its vast powers were delivered from his self-imposed exile in the US and could not be dismissed as the complaints of a long-time dissident.
Rather, he has long been a pillar of the Saudi establishment who was close to its ruling circles for decades, had worked as an editor at Saudi news outlets and had been an adviser to a former Saudi intelligence chief.
‘‘I would like to confirm that . . . Jamal is not at the consulate nor in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the consulate and the embassy are working to search for him.’’ Mohammed al-otaibi, Saudi consul-general