Turkey says Saudi consulate raid has evidence of journalist’s death
● US secretary of state in talks over fate of Washington Post columnist
Police searching the Saudi consulate found evidence that journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed there, a high-level Turkish official has said, as authorities appeared ready to also search the nearby residence of the consul general after the diplomat left the country.
The comment by the Turkish official has further intensified pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Mr Khashoggi, who vanished on 2 October while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.
US president Donald Trump said after a phone call with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that he “totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish consulate”.
The crown prince “told me that he has already started and will rapidly expand a full and complete investigation into this matter”. “Answers will be forthcoming shortly,” Mr Trump said in a tweet.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travelled to Saudi Arabia to talk to King Salman and the 33-year-old crown prince about the fate of the journalist who wrote critically about the Saudis for the Washington Post.
While it was all smiles and handshakes in Riyadh, one prominent Republican senator said he believed the crown prince had Mr Khashoggi “murdered.”
“This guy has got to go,” Senator Lindsey Graham said. “Saudi Arabia, if you’re listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose, but [the crown prince] has tainted your country and tainted himself.”
Saudi officials have called Turkish allegations that a team of 15 Saudi agents killed Mr Khashoggi “baseless”. However, US media reports suggested the kingdom may acknowledge the Saudi writer was killed at the consulate, perhaps as part of a botched
interrogation. The close US ally is ruled entirely by the Al Saud monarchy and all major decisions in the ultra-conservative kingdom are made by the royal family.
Washington Post publisher and chief executive Fred Ryan said the Saudi government “owes the Khashoggi family and the world a full and honest explanation of everything that happened to him”. He noted yesterday marked two weeks since the disappearance of the 59-year-old journalist.
“The Saudi government can
no longer remain silent and it is essential that our own government and others push harder for the truth,” Mr Ryan said.
The high-level Turkish official said police found “certain evidence” of Mr Khashoggi’s slaying at the consulate, without elaborating.
Police planned a second search at the Saudi consul general’s home, as well as some of the country’s diplomatic vehicles, Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. Leaked surveil- lance video shows diplomatic cars travelled to the consul general’s home shortly after Mr Khashoggi went into the consulate.
Consul General Mohammed al-otaibi left Turkey yesterday afternoon, just as police began putting up barricades around his official residence. Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge he had left or offer a reason for his departure.
Earlier in the day, 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”. That convention covers diplomatic immunity, as well as the idea that embassies and consulates sit on foreign soil in their host countries.
“Given there seems to be clear evidence that Mr Khashoggi entered the consulate and has never been seen since, the onus is on the Saudi authorities to reveal what happened to him,” Ms Bachelet said. Turkey had wanted to search the consulate for days.