Watch could provide clues
ISTANBUL: Jamal Khashoggi believed he was safe in Turkey where he had friends in high places, including some of President Tayyip Erdogan’s advisers. So when he walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul at 1pm on Tuesday, October 2 (local time), he hoped the appointment would be brief, a simple bureaucratic task that would allow him to marry his Turkish fiancee, whom he met four months earlier.
Turkish officials say they believe Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate.
Two senior Turkish officials revealed the existence of an object that may provide important clues to Khashoggi’s fate: the black Apple watch he was wearing when he entered the consulate. The watch was connected to a cellphone he left outside, they said.
Two Turkish security sources said security camera recordings showed Khashoggi had not left the consulate by either of its two exits.
They said 15 Saudi men had entered the building at about the time Khashoggi went in, having flown into Istanbul earlier in the day, most of them on a private aircraft from Riyadh and some on commercial flights.
The men left after ‘‘some time’’ in two cars and returned to the airport, the sources said. They said a third vehicle left at the same time but turned in the opposite direction. Investigators are trying to trace its route by analysing surveillance cameras.
A private plane that brought nine of the men in the early hours of October 2 was registered to a company belonging to the Saudi government. Turkish newspaper said it had identified the 15 as members of a Saudi intelligence team. One of the 15 Saudis identified by name and photo in the report is a forensic expert who has worked at the Saudi Interior Ministry for 20 years, according to a LinkedIn profile and Saudi media, and serves on the board of the Saudi Society of Forensic Medicine. Other names and photos of the 15 match officers in the Saudi Army and Air Force, as identified by previous Saudi media reports and in one case a Facebook profile. A Saudi source said British intelligence believed there had been an attempt to drug Khashoggi inside the consulate that culminated in an overdose. He said the information came from British intelligence.