Fears for journo’s life

– Turkish police believe Saudi journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, a government source said, but Riyadh denied the claim.

The Washington Post contributor, 59, vanished after an appointment with Saudi officials on Tuesday.

“Based on their initial findings, the police believe that the journalist was killed by a team especially sent to Istanbul and who left the same day,” the government source said on Saturday.

Police said earlier that about 15 Saudis, including officials, arrived in Istanbul on two flights on Tuesday and were at the consulate at the same time as Khashoggi.

The journalist went to the building to obtain official documents but “did not come back out”, police were quoted as saying by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

Ankara announced on Saturday that it had opened an official probe into his disappearance.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency quoted an unnamed official at the Istanbul consulate as denying the reports of Khashoggi’s murder.

“The official strongly denounced these baseless allegations,” the agency wrote. It said a team of Saudi investigators were in Turkey working with local authorities.

Reacting to the news, the journalist’s Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said on Twitter she was “waiting for an official confirmation from the Turkish government to believe it”.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate to receive an official document for their marriage.

In his newspaper columns, Khashoggi has been critical of some policies of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Riyadh’s intervention in the war in Yemen.

The former government advisor, who turns 60 on October 13, has lived in self-imposed exile in the US since last year to avoid possible arrest.

Yasin Aktay, an official in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, who was close to the journalist, said Khashoggi had made an appointment in advance with the consulate and called to check the documents were ready.

“His friends had warned him, ‘Don’t go there, it is not safe,’ but he said they could not do anything to him in Turkey,” said Aktay.

He added that he still hoped the reports of his friend’s death were untrue.

Istanbul ‘Unprecedented crime if true’

Prince Mohammed said in an interview published by Bloomberg on Friday that the journalist had left the consulate and Turkish authorities could search the building, which is Saudi sovereign territory.

“We are ready to welcome the Turkish government to go and search our premises,” he said.

“We have nothing to hide.” – AFP