There are audio and video recordings of how Jamal Khashoggi, the missing Saudi journalist was “interrogated, tortured and then murdered” inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul before his body was dismembered.
The Washington Post, where Khashoggi was a columnist before his ill-fated journey to Istanbul last week, reported that the recordings were in the hands of Turkish officials.
According to the newspaper, Turkey has informed the U.S. government about its possession of the smoking gun.
Turkish officials refused to comment on the veracity of the report, the AFP reported.
Khashoggi vanished on October 2 after entering the consulate to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage.
The report about the video came as Saudi Arabia dismissed on Saturday accusations that Jamal Khashoggi was ordered murdered by a hit squad inside its Istanbul consulate as “lies and baseless allegations”.
A Saudi delegation has arrived in Turkey for talks on the case, as Riyadh and Ankara spat over the journalist’s fate.
Big names from media and business have already cancelled appearances at a major conference in Riyadh this month and both the IMF chief and the US treasury secretary made their attendance conditional on the findings in the case.
In the first Saudi ministerial reaction to Turkish accusations that Khashoggi was killed, Interior Minister Prince Abdel Aziz bin Saud bin Nayef condemned “what has been reported in certain media concerning false accusations against Saudi Arabia… in the case of the disappearance of citizen Khashoggi”.
“What has been reported on the matter of orders to kill him is a lie and a baseless allegation,” the minister said in comments carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
He added that the kingdom was “in compliance with international laws and conventions”.
The Saudi delegation, whose composition was not immediately clear, is expected to meet with Turkish officials in Ankara at the weekend, state media said on Friday.
The Turkish leadership has so far stopped short of accusing Saudi Arabia, although pro-government media have published sensational claims, including that an “assassination team” was sent to Istanbul to kill Khashoggi.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has challenged Saudi Arabia to provide CCTV images to back up its account that Khashoggi left the consulate safely.
Khashoggi, a Saudi national living in the US since September 2017 fearing arrest, criticised some policies of Mohammed bin Salman and Riyadh’s intervention in the war in Yemen.
Leave a Reply