Khashoggi was strangled, dismembered: lawyer
Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and his body was “dismembered and destroyed,” a Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday.
The statement from Irfan Fidan, the chief Istanbul prosecutor, is the first official confirmation from Turkey that The Washington Post columnist’s body was cut to pieces after he was killed in a premeditated operation on Oct 2.
Fidan also expressed frustration that a series of meetings with the chief prosecutor of Saudi Arabia had yielded no “concrete results.”
Turkey is demanding to know where Khashoggi’s remains are and who gave the order to kill him.
Fidan said: “In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim was choked to death immediately after entering the consulate. The victim’s body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation — again, in line with advance plans.” He did not say how he knew that Khashoggi had been strangled.
Both Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, and Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancée, have called for Saudi Arabia to help locate the body. “We still don’t know where Jamal’s body is,” Cengiz told ABC News.
“There is no explanation about this. He did not have a funeral yet. This is not acceptable in Islamic rules.”
Turkish investigators have searched a forest north of Istanbul and taken samples from a well at the residence of the Saudi consul general.
International outrage over the death of the U.S.based journalist has put pressure on the Trump administration, which is being criticized for providing military support for Saudi Arabia’s Yemen air campaign and for pursuing arms sales to the Saudis.
On Tuesday Defence Secretary Jim Mattis demanded a ceasefire in the Saudi-Iran proxy war in Yemen within 30 days. The conflict began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, and the toppling of the government by the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim minority in the country. The Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015.
“We’re calling on all the parties, specifically the Houthis and the Arab coalition, to meet in Sweden in November and to come to a solution,” Mattis said.