Don Quixote
Footballguy
I've been following this story since it happened (he contributed to the Washington Post, and I'm a subscriber to that). I thought it might make sense to get a thread going as the story is evolving and getting more attention.
Quick summary is that Jamal Khashoggi (a journalist who has become a critic of the Saudi government) walked into the Saudi consulate in Turkey about a week ago, but never came out. His fiancee was waiting outside for him. He went in to get documentation so that he could get married. He had gone in the week prior, and been told to return to the consulate at that time/date to pick up his paperwork.
Reports are saying that a 15-person team flew in from Saudi Arabia, involving some intelligence personnel, and killed him in an operation ordered by top Saudi leadership. An excerpt from a NY Times story with grisly details is below. Interested to see what the response will be if the report is proven true.
Quick summary is that Jamal Khashoggi (a journalist who has become a critic of the Saudi government) walked into the Saudi consulate in Turkey about a week ago, but never came out. His fiancee was waiting outside for him. He went in to get documentation so that he could get married. He had gone in the week prior, and been told to return to the consulate at that time/date to pick up his paperwork.
Reports are saying that a 15-person team flew in from Saudi Arabia, involving some intelligence personnel, and killed him in an operation ordered by top Saudi leadership. An excerpt from a NY Times story with grisly details is below. Interested to see what the response will be if the report is proven true.
Turkish Officials Say Khashoggi Was Killed on Order of Saudi Leadership
ANKARA, Turkey — Top Turkish security officials have concluded that the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on orders from the highest levels of the royal court, a senior official said Tuesday.
The official described a quick and complex operation in which Mr. Khashoggi was killed within two hours of his arrival at the consulate by a team of Saudi agents, who dismembered his body with a bone saw they brought for the purpose.
“It is like ‘Pulp Fiction,’” the official said.
Saudi officials, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have denied the allegations, insisting that Mr. Khashoggi left the consulate freely shortly after he arrived. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has demanded that the Saudis provide evidence proving their claim.
It remains unclear how the Turkish government determined that Mr. Khashoggi had been killed, but the conclusion that the Saudi royal court ordered it could increase the pressure on both sides of the dispute. It would make it more difficult for the two governments to come up with a face-saving story blaming Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance on some third party, on rogue elements of the Saudi security forces, or on an accident during an interrogation that went wrong.
Turkish officials have left things murky enough — speaking on condition of anonymity and refusing to publicly disclose their evidence — that such possibilities cannot be ruled out. Some pro-government news outlets have reported that the police were still investigating the possibility that Mr. Khashoggi was abducted, not killed.
But as more than a week has passed since he was last seen, the possibility that he is alive has dwindled.
The security establishment concluded that Mr. Khashoggi’s killing was directed from the top because only the most senior Saudi leaders could order an operation of such scale and complexity, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to disclose confidential briefings.
Fifteen Saudi agents had arrived on two charter flights last Tuesday, the day Mr. Khashoggi disappeared, the official said.
All 15 left just a few hours later, and Turkey has now identified the roles that most or all of them held in the Saudi government or security services, the official said. One was an autopsy expert, presumably there to help dismember the body, the official said.
Mr. Erdogan was informed of the conclusions on Saturday, according to several people with knowledge of the briefings, and he has since dispatched officials to anonymously tell myriad news outlets, including The New York Times, that Mr. Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate.
But Mr. Erdogan himself has not publicly accused Saudi Arabia of killing Mr. Khashoggi. Nor has the Turkish president disclosed specific evidence to back up that allegation.
His reticence has raised questions about whether Turkey might ultimately back away from an explicit accusation in the interest of preserving relations with Saudi Arabia, a wealthy regional heavyweight. Mr. Erdogan may prefer not to alienate the kingdom as he struggles to manage a troubled economy and a many-sided power struggle over the outcome of the civil war in neighboring Syria.
A publication with close ties to Mr. Erdogan’s government, the newspaper Sabah, reported Tuesday that unnamed officials had said the police were examining the possibility that Mr. Khashoggi had been abducted and not killed, possibly with the help of another country’s intelligence officers.
The official who spoke about Mr. Khashoggi’s killing said that report and other similar ones were incorrect and were probably the result of the limited information shared among different agencies within the Turkish government.
The need to protect intelligence sources — which might include intercepted communications or human informers — also contributed to the government’s reluctance to reveal its evidence, the official said. That need for secrecy could also hamper any efforts to prosecute any Saudi agents involved....
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