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Friday, October 12, 2018

Jamal Khashoggi was last seen October 2, 2018, entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul

Apple watch worn by Saudi journalist may have transmitted evidence of his death, Turkish paper reports-Turkish government told US officials that it was in possession of audio and video recordings proving that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, citing unnamed US and Turkish sources.


The Committee to Protect Journalists has sadly posted the news about another violent death caused by enemies of a free press. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has not taken a harsh position against the Saudi government or the national leader Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud 

Committee to Protect Journalists- Mission: Promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. CPJ ensures the free flow of news and commentary by taking action wherever journalists are attacked, imprisoned, killed, kidnapped, threatened, censored, or harassed.

Saudi leader Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

CPJ report: The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was last seen October 2, 2018, entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, his fiancée told his employer, The Washington Post.

A former editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan, Khashoggi has been a columnist for The Washington Post since he moved to self-imposed exile in the U.S. in September 2017. Khashoggi wrote critically about Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. He criticized politically motivated arrests and was one of the first to report the arrest in the country of Saleh al-Shehi, a prominent columnist, in January 2018.

On October 2, Khashoggi had gone to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to complete paperwork certifying that he had officially divorced so he could marry his Turkish fiancée, according to news reports. In an op-ed for The Washington Post, his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, wrote that Khashoggi visited the consulate for the first time September 28 unannounced and the staff received him cordially. According to Reuters, the consulate staff told Khashoggi he would need to return to complete the process; Khashoggi called the consulate on the morning of October 2 and was told to collect his paperwork at 1 p.m. the same day. He arrived with Cengiz, gave her his two mobile phones, and told her that if he did not return she should call Yasin Aktay, his friend who works as an aide to Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdoğan, according to Reuters.

Cengiz wrote in The Washington Post that after three hours she asked consulate staff about her fiancé’s whereabouts, and when they claimed that he left the premises without her noticing, she immediately called Aktay.

On October 6, Turkish intelligence sources claimed that a team of Saudi intelligence agents killed Khashoggi and dismembered his body, according to The New York Times. They did not offer any proof of the claim. The Daily Sabah, a Turkish newspaper close to the government, and The New York Times both reported that a group of 15 Saudi intelligence officials arrived on a private jet from Riyadh early on the morning of October 2, checked into two separate hotels near the consulate for three nights, and later all left the country the same day.

Saudi authorities denied that Khashoggi was abducted or killed at the consulate and said that he left on his own, Reuters reported. They did not offer proof that Khashoggi left the consulate.

The Washington Post reported October 10 that U.S. intelligence had intercepted communications indicating that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had previously ordered Khashoggi to be detained and rendered from the U.S. back to Saudi Arabia.

On October 11, the Turkish government told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate, The Washington Post reported. The paper quoted one unnamed official as saying of the audio recording: “You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic. You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered.” A second person briefed on the recording said men could be heard beating Khashoggi, according to The Washington Post.

Khashoggi, who was 59 years old at the time of his disappearance, has long-standing ties to the Saudi royal family, The Washington Post reported. However, he was fired from Al-Watan twice, once in 2003 over his criticism of a 14th century Muslim theologian and again in 2010, after the paper ran a piece critical of the Saudi state’s governing religious ideology, according to a BBC report

In between his stints at Al-Watan, he was an adviser to Prince Turki al-Faisal while the prince was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.K., and became his media aide when the prince was later appointed ambassador to the U.S.

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