Turkey ‘won’t allow cover-up’
Turkey promised yesterday that it would not allow any cover up over Jamal Khashoggi’s death after Saudi Arabia admitted its operatives killed the journalist but insisted that the crown prince was not involved.
After protesting its innocence for more than two weeks, Saudi Arabia changed course and said that Khashoggi, 59, had died during ‘‘a fist fight’’ in the Saudi consulate on October 2.
The kingdom said it had arrested 18 Saudis and sacked General Ahmed al-Assiri, the deputy intelligence chief, and Saud al-Qahtani, a close aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It insisted that the crown prince had no knowledge of the murder. Donald Trump said he found the explanation ‘‘credible’’ but the Saudi narrative was met with a wave of scepticism by US intelligence experts and leading members of Congress.
Omer Celik, a spokesman for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said the country had ‘‘a debt of honour’’ to solve Khashoggi’s death and would continue its own investigation. ‘‘Turkey will reveal whatever had happened. Nobody should ever doubt about it,’’ Celik said. ‘‘We are not accusing anyone in advance but we don’t accept anything to remain covered [up].’’
Turkish police continue to search for Khashoggi’s corpse amid Saudi claims that his killers handed his body to a local accomplice and that the kingdom did not know where it was.
Officials in Ankara claim to have audio tapes showing Khashoggi was tortured before he was murdered and cut apart. The tapes, if released, could undercut Saudi claims of a fist fight.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was the first major world leader to say she did not accept Saudi Arabia’s explanation of the ‘‘horrific events’’. ‘‘They still haven’t been cleared up and of course we demand that they be cleared up,’’ she said.
Saudi officials said the kingdom had issued a general order for Saudi dissidents to return home but that Assiri had acted on his own to plan the kidnap of Khashoggi. ‘‘[Crown Prince Mohammed] had no knowledge of this specific operation and certainly did not order a kidnapping or murder of anybody,’’ an official said. According to the Saudi statement, a 15-man squad confronted Khashoggi as he entered the consulate and a fight broke out, ending in the journalists’ death. It said there was ‘‘a brawl and a fist fight with the citizen, Jamal Khashoggi, which led to his death, may his soul rest in peace.’’
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institute, said it was ‘‘ludicrous’’ to claim Saudi officials had mounted the operation without the crown prince’s knowledge.
‘‘If this is the best cover up they’re going to be able to put forward it’s not going to pass muster,’’ he said. – Telegraph Group