Turkey urges Saudi co-operation in Khashoggi probe

ANKARA, TURKEY — Turkey’s justice minister on Thursday renewed a call on Saudi Arabia to co-operate in the investigation into the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, saying “no one can escape responsibility.”

Abdulhamit Gul said that Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor — who spent three days in Istanbul as part of joint Turkish-Saudi efforts to investigate the killing — had failed to answer Turkish investigators’ questions about the location of the writer’s remains as well as who ordered the killing.

“We expect these questions to be answered swiftly,” Gul told reporters. “No one can escape responsibility. This issue has become a world matter. It is not an issue that can be covered up.”

He added: “They have to support (the probe) so that the entire incident is brought to light.”

Istanbul’s chief prosecutor announced Wednesday that The Washington Post columnist was strangled after he entered the consulate on Oct. 2 to collect a document he needed to marry his Turkish fiancée. His body was dismembered and removed from the consulate, the prosecutor’s office stated, adding that the killing was premeditated.

The prosecutor’s statement that Khashoggi was killed immediately conflicted with a report by pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak last month, which cited what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggi being tortured before being killed.