Jamal Khashoggi missing: Pressure grows on Saudis as CCTV shows last sighting of journalist at consulate in Istanbul

Vanished: the CCTV image of Jamal Khashoggi entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul
Kiran Randhawa9 October 2018

Saudi Arabia was under growing pressure today to explain the disappearance of exiled journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a CCTV image emerged capturing the moment he was last seen alive.

The picture showed the reporter walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a week ago.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today urged Saudi Arabia to carry out a full investigation amid claims from Turkey that Mr Khashoggi was murdered inside the building by a hit squad from the kingdom.

The surveillance image released by the Washington Post, for which Mr Khashoggi was a columnist, came as it was revealed he told a fellow reporter three days before he vanished that he could never return to Saudi Arabia.

Turkish officials have said they fear the dissident, who went to the consulate to finalise his divorce so that he could marry his Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz, was killed there. Saudi Arabia has called the allegations “baseless,” insisting Mr Khashoggi left the building last Tuesday.

Waiting for information: Hatice Cengiz, the Turkish fiancée of Jamal Khashoggi, said: “I no longer feel like I’m really alive”
AP

Turkish authorities are also examining motorway cameras in the search for a black van they believe carried the body of Mr Khashoggi from the consulate — one of six vehicles investigators allege belonged to a 15-strong Saudi hit squad.

Officials say the convoy left the consulate around two hours after Mr Khashoggi entered. Flight records show two Saudi planes arrived at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport last Tuesday and departed separately the same day, hours after Mr Khashoggi was last seen.

The journalist has been one of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s most prominent critics. A member of the Saudi elite, he had been in self-imposed exile in the US for much of the past year.

In an informal chat with a BBC reporter, three days before he disappeared, he said: “I don’t think I will be able to go home. When I heard of an arrest of a friend who did nothing, it makes me feel like I shouldn’t go. The people being arrested aren’t even dissidents, they just have an independent mind.”

Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman of Yemen holds a picture of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a protest outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials claim he could have been killed there
REUTERS

Mr Pompeo issued a statement saying senior US diplomats had spoken to Saudi counterparts about the case. “We call on the government of Saudi Arabia to support a thorough investigation of Mr Khashoggi’s disappearance and to be transparent about the results of that investigation,” he said.

President Trump, a robust ally of Saudi Arabia, added that he was “concerned” about “some pretty bad stories” about Mr Khashoggi’s fate.

Ms Cengiz, who said she waited 11 hours outside the consulate for him and raised the alarm, said: “I no longer feel like I am really alive. I can’t sleep. I don’t eat. As his fiancée, as someone close to Jamal and in love with Jamal, I am waiting for information from my government about what has happened to him. Where is Jamal?”

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday urged the Saudis to back up their claim that Mr Khashoggi had left the consulate. He said: “Don’t you have cameras and other things? Why don’t you prove it?”

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