Khashoggi mourners demand 'true justice' after Saudi disclosures
Colleagues say they want punishment for killers and ‘the authority that gave the orders’
Friends and colleagues of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi have resumed their vigil outside the Saudi consulate building in Istanbul where he was killed two weeks ago to mourn his death and demand those responsible be bought to “true justice”.
“This is not over. It’s just starting,” Turan Kışlakçı, the president of the Arab Turkish Media Association, said in a speech. “We want Jamal’s murderers to be punished … and punishment also for the authority that gave the orders.”
After more than two weeks of stubborn denials from Saudi Arabia that it had anything to do with the dissident journalist’s disappearance, statements carried on the Saudi state news agency in the early hours of Saturday morning finally acknowledged he had died as the result of a “fistfight” inside the consulate on 2 October.
The statements said 18 men had been arrested in connection with the “cover-up”, and two senior officials – close confidantes of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman – had been sacked. Khashoggi’s body had been disposed of by a “local collaborator”, officials later added.
Saudi Arabia had been under significant pressure from allies in the White House to offer an explanation in the escalating diplomatic crisis.
The account has been met with widespread scepticism, however, in the face of mounting evidence emerging from the Turkish investigation into Khashoggi’s death pointing to a sophisticated assassination operation that could not have been carried out without the express sanction of the Saudi royal court.
Turkish officials have coordinated sustained leaks of information to local and US media that suggest Khashoggi was tortured and murdered and his body dismembered with a bone saw.
Investigators allege 15 men who arrived in Istanbul from Riyadh on private jets owned by the Saudi royal family were sent to kill him. Several of the suspects – including members of the crown prince’s security detail and a well-known forensics expert – were captured in security camera footage entering the consulate building the day Khashoggi died.
The deputy head of Turkey’s ruling party, Numan Kurtulmuş, vowed on Saturday that Turkey would “never allow a cover-up” of the killing. “We don’t immediately blame anyone. But we won’t go along with leaving details buried,” he said.
Separately, a senior Turkish official told Reuters that investigators were close to finding out what happened to Khashoggi’s body. Police were searching Belgrad forest, north of Istanbul, and farmland near Yalova, 55-mile drive south of the city, after using CCTV footage to track the journeys of two vehicles owned by the Saudi consulate after Khashoggi was killed.
The UK cautiously acknowledged the Saudi version of events on Saturday. A statement from the Foreign Office said the government was considering its next steps.
In Washington, where the administration has made clear the US cannot afford to damage relations with its most important Arab ally, Donald Trump said what had happened to Khashoggi was “unacceptable” but called the Saudi announcement a “good first step”.
