Journo’s killing recorded
Turkish paper publishes report on writer’s slaying apparently gleaned from audio tape
A PRO-GOVERNMENT Turkish newspaper yesterday published a gruesome report on the alleged slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, just as America’s top diplomat arrived in the country for talks over The Washington Post columnist’s disappearance.
The report by Yeni Safak adds to the increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Khashoggi, who vanished on October 2 while picking up paperwork at the consulate that he needed to get married.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held separate meetings with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in the country’s capital, Ankara.
Pompeo met Saudi King Salman and his son, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on Tuesday. Before leaving Riyadh, he told reporters that the Saudi leaders “made a commitment to hold anyone… that may be found accountable for that, whether they are a senior officer or official”.
Khashoggi had fled the country last year amid the rise of Mohammed, whom he wrote critically about.
The Yeni Safak report cited what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggi’s slaying, which it said showed the writer was tortured.
The newspaper said Saudi Consul-General Mohammed al-Otaibi could be heard on the tape, telling those allegedly torturing Khashoggi: “Do this outside; you’re going to get me in trouble.”
The newspaper said one of the Saudis torturing Khashoggi replied: “Shut up if you want to live when you return to (Saudi) Arabia.”
Saudi officials have not responded to repeated requests for comment in recent days. Al-Otaibi left Turkey on Tuesday afternoon, Turkish state media reported.
Security services in Turkey have used pro-government media to leak details of Khashoggi’s case, adding to the pressure on the kingdom.
President Donald Trump, who earlier warned of “severe punishment” if the kingdom was found culpable for Khashoggi’s disappearance, criticised the allegations, comparing them to the accusations of sexual assault levelled against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “Here we go again with you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Trump said.
That attitude does not appear to be shared with Congress, as one prominent Republican senator said he believed that the crown prince, widely known as MBS, had Khashoggi “murdered”.
“This guy has got to go,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, speaking on Fox TV. “Saudi Arabia, if you’re listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose, but MBS has tainted your country and tainted himself.”
On Tuesday, a Turkish official said that police found “certain evidence” of Khashoggi’s slaying at the consulate, without elaborating.
Police plan to search the consul-general’s home and some of the country’s diplomatic vehicles, Cavusoglu said.
Leaked surveillance video shows that diplomatic cars travelled to the consul general’s home shortly after Khashoggi went into the consulate.
Police put up barricades around the consul’s official residence on Tuesday night. The search, however, did not happen overnight and reasons for that weren’t immediately clear.
On Tuesday, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the “inviolability or immunity” of people or premises granted under the 1963 Vienna Convention on consular relations “should be waived immediately”. The convention covers diplomatic immunity and the concept that embassies and consulates sit on foreign soil in their host countries.