Turkey to search Saudi consulate for missing journalist, feared dead
Print Edition
Turkey said yesterday it will search the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of an investigation into the disappearance of a missing Saudi contributor to The Washington Post, a week after he vanished during a visit there.
The announcement came as a surveillance image surfaced of Jamal Khashoggi walking into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, just before he disappeared. Turkish officials have said they fear the columnist was killed at the premises.
Saudi Arabia has called the allegations that it killed 59-year-old Khashoggi “baseless” but has offered no evidence to show that he ever left the building.
US President Donald Trump has expressed concern about the writer’s disappearance, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US officials have raised the matter with their Saudi counterparts.
Yesterday’s statement from Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said Saudi authorities have notified Ankara that they were “open to cooperation” and would allow the consulate building to be searched. The ministry did not say when the premises would be searched.
Officials in Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A search would be an extraordinary development, as embassies and consulates under the Vienna Convention are technically foreign soil and must be protected by host nations.
The surveillance image bore a date and time stamp, as well as a Turkish caption saying that Khashoggi was arriving at the consulate. The Post, which first published the photo, said “a person close to the investigation” shared the image with them, without elaborating. The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet also published the image.
The door Khashoggi walked in through appeared to be the main entrance of the consulate in Istanbul’s 4th Levent neighborhood, a leafy, upscale district near the city’s financial hub that’s home to several other consulates. However, the consulate has other entrances and exits as well, through which Saudi officials insist he left.
It’s unclear which camera the footage came from or who operated it. However, a number of closed-circuit surveillance cameras surround the area. Friends of Khashoggi say Turkish police have taken possession of footage from the neighborhood as part of their investigation.
The Saudis have offered no footage or evidence to corroborate their claims, and Turkish authorities have not provided evidence to show why they believe the columnist was killed there.
Khashoggi had gone to the consulate for paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancee.
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