Saudi regime admits Khashoggi was killed in its Istanbul consulate
By
James Cogan
20 October 2018
The Saudi Arabian monarchial regime finally admitted late Friday that dissident Saudi journalist and Washington Post correspondent Jamal Khashoggi was killed on October 2 inside its consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The acknowledgment comes after more than two weeks in which Saudi officials insisted that Khashoggi left the consulate unharmed and that they had no knowledge of his whereabouts.
The admission that Khashoggi was in fact killed was presented by the country’s chief public prosecutor in a statement delivered on national television. It was made in the face of detailed reports by Turkish investigators that a 15-man team of Saudi intelligence agents, with close ties to the heir to the throne and de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was flown into Istanbul to assassinate Khashoggi. The journalist was viewed with hostility by the Saudi regime because of his criticisms of the crown prince and the murderous US-backed war being waged by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
Khashoggi had visited the consulate on September 28 to finalise divorce proceedings from his Saudi wife so he could marry his Turkish fiancée. He returned on October 2 to pick up documents.
Turkish officials say that audio and video recordings in their possession show that the journalist was seized by the hit squad and brutally tortured and murdered, after which his body was dismembered and taken out of the building in suitcases by the Saudi operatives. The remains may have been flown to Saudi Arabia, though Turkish police have been conducting searches in forested areas on the outskirts of Istanbul.
The alternative version of events advanced by the Saudi regime is a fantastic and brazen attempt to…