Turkey probes claims that Saudis killed journalist

Istanbul: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said he was awaiting the results of an investigation into the disappearance of a Saudi journalist who a government source said was killed at Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul.

Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, 59, vanished after an appointment with Saudi officials on Tuesday.

A Turkish government source told AFP that police believed Khashoggi was killed at the Istanbul consulate, which Riyadh strongly denied.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate to obtain documents needed to marry his Turkish fiancee.

Erdogan said he would wait for the outcome of the current investigation before taking a decision.

“I am following the (issue) and we will inform the world whatever the outcome” of the official probe, the president told reporters in Ankara.

“God willing, we will not be faced with a situation we do not want.” He said police were examining CCTV footage of entrances and exits at the consulate and Istanbul airport.

Police said earlier that around 15 Saudis, including officials, arrived in Istanbul on two flights on Tuesday and were at the consulate at the same time as Khashoggi.

“Based on their initial findings, the police believe that the journalist was killed by a team especially sent to Istanbul and who left the same day,” the government source told AFP on Saturday.

The journalist went to the building but “did not come back out”, police were quoted as saying by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

The consulate rejected the claims that the journalist was killed there as “baseless”, in a Twitter message.

It said a Saudi team was in Turkey to investigate the disappearance.

The journalist’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said on Twitter she was “waiting for an official confirmation from the Turkish government” before she could believe the claims.

Khashoggi has been critical of some of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies and Riyadh’s intervention in the war in Yemen.

His criticisms appeared in both the Arab and Western press.

The former government adviser, who turns 60 on October 13, has lived in the United States since last year to avoid possible arrest.

Yasin Aktay, an official in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) who was close to the journalist, said Khashoggi had made an appointment in advance with the consulate and called to check the documents were ready.

“His friends had warned him, ‘Don’t go there, it is not safe,’ but he said they could not do anything to him in Turkey,” said Aktay.

He added that he still hoped the reports of his friend’s death were untrue.

Prince Mohammed said in an interview published by Bloomberg on Friday that the journalist had left the consulate and Turkish authorities could search the building, which is Saudi sovereign territory.

Turkey’s foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned Saudi Arabia’s ambassador over the issue.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Twitter that if reports of his death were confirmed, “this would constitute a horrific, utterly deplorable, and absolutely unacceptable assault on press freedom”.