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Journalist recorded his death in embassy on Apple watch
Murdered Washington-based Saudi journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi
Turkish officials have alleged that Saudi agents tortured and murdered Washington-based Saudi journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi.
Khashoggi is an author and journalist attached to the Washington Post. He previously served as general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel and editor for Saudi newspaper Al Watan.
After the Saudi government banned him from Twitter, the journalist fled Saudi Arabia to America in September of 2017.
Khashoggi had travelled to Turkey with his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, so that he could obtain documents from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which would allow him to prove that he is divorced from his previous marriage.
At around 1pm, on October 2, last, he left two of his cell phones with his fiancée and told her to wait for him outside. He also instructed her to report to the authorities if he did not emerge from the consulate after a few hours.
He then entered the consulate alone.
His fiancée called the police when Khashoggi did not emerge after the consulate closed.
“The initial assessment of the Turkish police is that Mr. Khashoggi has been killed at the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. We believe that the murder was premeditated and the body was subsequently moved out of the consulate,” a Turkish official told Reuters news agency.
The Turkish Prime Minister immediately called for an investigation into the disappearance of Khashoggi.
He asked the Saudi ambassador for the video recording but was told that there were no recording that day, both at the Saudi consulate and the Ambassador’s residence.
A Turkish security source told Reuters that a group of 15 Saudi nationals, including some officials, had arrived in Istanbul, Turkey, in two planes 3:00 am, and entered the consulate on the same day that Khashoggi was there. They spent two hours at the consulate, then went to the Ambassador’s residence 200 metres from the consulate. There, they spent four hours. They later left the country that evening.
Investigators said that hours after Khashoggi’s disappearance, men were seen loading boxes from the consulate into a black vehicle; two of them are the Saudi’s Prince, personal bodyguards. The boxes, they believe, contained the chopped up parts of Khashoggi’s body.
King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia
Reuters reported that a Saudi source at the consulate denied that Khashoggi had been killed at the mission and said in a statement that the accusations were baseless.
Saudi Arabia denied any involvement in the matter, and maintains that Khashoggi left the consulate on the same day.
According to Turkish authorities, Jamal Khashoggi’s smart watch could potentially play an important factor into solving the disappearance and alleged murder of the Saudi journalist.
The authorities have said Khashoggi’s smart watch recorded audio of his meeting inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which was then sent to a phone he gave his fiancee ahead of his meeting.
Security forces leading the investigation found the audio file inside the phone Khashoggi left with his fiancée, according to Sabah, a leading Turkish newspaper.
The paper said Saudi intelligence agents had realised after he died that the phone was recording and they used his fingerprint to unlock it, deleting some files, but not all of them. The recordings were subsequently found on his phone, it said.
The moments of his “interrogation, torture and killing were audio recorded and sent to both his phone and to iCloud,” the newspaper reported. The Turkish newspaper said conversations of the men involved in the reported assassination were recorded.
The Washington Post reported that the audio recording in particular provided “persuasive and gruesome evidence” that a Saudi team dispatched to Istanbul was responsible for Khashoggi’s death.
Khashoggi had settled in Washington, DC after he fled Saudi Arabia, and began working for the Washington Post. He is a columnist for Washington Post Global Opinions.
Through these means, he has been a high profile critic of Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, and its king, Salman of Saudi Arabia.
On September 18, Khashoggi wrote, “I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot. I want you to know that Saudi Arabia has not always been as it is now. We Saudis deserve better.”
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