Saudi critic vanishes after consulate visit

A PROMINENT Saudi Arabian journalist who has been critical of the royal family has gone missing after visiting the kingdom’s consulate in Turkey.

Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist with The Washington Post, had visited the consulate in Istanbul to request paperwork relating to his marital status.

Hatice, his Turkish fiancée – who declined to give her surname for her safety – said she waited for him outside the consulate but he never came out.

“I don’t know what has happened to him,” she said. “I can’t even guess how such a thing can happen to him. There is no law or lawsuit against him. He is not a suspect, he has not been convicted. There is nothing against him. He is just a man whose country doesn’t like his writings or his opinions.”

A Turkish security official said that authorities were in discussions with

‘There is nothing against him. He is just a man whose country doesn’t like his writings or his opinions’

Saudi officials about the disappearance, and that they believed the 59-year-old was being held inside the consulate.

Khashoggi’s personal website bore a banner saying “Jamal has been arrested at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul!” Saudi Arabian authorities issued a statement denying he was being detained, saying he “visited the consulate and exited shortly thereafter”.

Khashoggi, a former Saudi newspaper editor, went into a self-imposed exile in the United States following the ascension of Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince, now next in line to the throne.

Shortly after he fled, the country began a series of arrests of dozens of dissidents, women’s rights activists, intellectuals and Islamic preachers.

Among them was economist Essam al-zamil, a friend of Khashoggi’s, who was charged this week with joining a terrorist organisation, meeting with foreign diplomats and inciting protests.