Mystery persists over the fate of the Saudi journalist missing in Istanbul

Tabnak – Although it’s reported that a missing Saudi journalist has been killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Turkish police is yet to officially announce the result of its investigations on the case. Given the importance of the issue, the Turkish president says he’s personally following the process of investigations.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday he was personally following the case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared last week, and added that he still hoped for a positive outcome to the matter.

On Saturday, Turkish sources told Reuters that Turkish authorities believed Khashoggi had been killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week, in what they described as the deliberate targeting of a prominent critic of the Persian Gulf kingdom’s rulers.

Erdogan told reporters that authorities were looking into all camera records and monitoring incoming and outgoing airport transits, but added that Turkey would await the results of the prosecutor’s investigation.

This is while an advisor to Turkish President says he also believes that Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. Yasin Aktay, who advises the Turkish leader in his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, made the comments in an interview on Sunday, adding that Turkish authorities further believed that a group of 15 Saudi nationals were “most certainly involved” in the matter.

He also rejected as not “sincere” the Saudi officials’ statements that there had been no camera records to show the purported exit of Khashoggi from the consulate, as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman claimed to have occurred in a Bloomberg interview conducted on Wednesday and published on Friday.

Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency also said in a report that the 15 Saudi nationals had been at the consulate for a brief period last Tuesday. It is also said that the interrogators later dismembered his body and the Saudi nationals took interrogation video with themselves to brief Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his death.

Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the Saudi government, had been living in self-imposed exile in the United States since 2017, when Saudi authorities launched a massive crackdown on the dissent. He was seeking to secure documentation for his forthcoming marriage when he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday.

His fiancée waited outside the consulate for hours without hearing from him, prompting her to report his disappearance to Istanbul police. Ankara says there is no proof he left the diplomatic mission.

On Sunday, the prominent rights group, Amnesty International, issued a statement noting that if Khashoggi's murder is proven, it would amount to extrajudicial execution.

The statement said, “Reports that a team flew in from Saudi Arabia expressly to carry out a ‘planned murder’ in the Consulate are cause for extreme alarm after Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance since entering the building on 2 October."

"If true, this would be an abysmal new low. Such an assassination within the grounds of the Consulate would amount to an extrajudicial execution. This case sends a shockwave among Saudi Arabian human rights defenders and dissidents everywhere, eroding any notion of seeking safe haven abroad," Amnesty added.

The Washington Post newspaper, which featured articles from Khashoggi on its Global Opinions section, published blank pages on its print and website editions on Friday, demanding urgent information about the journalist whereabouts.