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Istanbul (AFP) – Turkish police believe that Saudi journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi mission in Istanbul after his disappearance on Tuesday, an unnamed government official said.
"Based on their initial findings, the police believe that the journalist was killed by a team specially sent to Istanbul and who left on the same day," said this official at AFP on Saturday.
Hours after the police confirmed that some 15 Saudis, including officials, arrived in Istanbul on two flights on Tuesday and were at the consulate at the same time as Khashoggi.
The Washington Post contributor went to the consulate for an administrative task but "did not come back" from the building, police reported to the Anadolu-run news agency, which was run by the police. State.
At the conclusion of the preliminary investigation, Ankara announced Saturday that it had opened an official investigation into his disappearance.
The Saudi press agency, citing an anonymous head of the Istanbul consulate, denied reports of Khashoggi's murder.
"The official strongly denounced these unfounded allegations," the agency wrote, adding that a team of Saudi investigators was in Turkey and was working with local authorities.
Reacting to the news of the alleged murder, Hatice Cengiz, the journalist's Turkish fiancée, said on Twitter that she "did not believe that he had been killed".
In his columns, Khashoggi criticized some policies of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Riyadh's intervention in the war in Yemen.
The former government adviser, who turns 60 on October 13, last year lived in self-imposed exile in the United States to avoid possible arrest.
– we have nothing to hide & # 39; –
Freedom of the press activists have condemned reports of a possible murder of Khashoggi. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists, based in New York, asked Riyadh to give "a full and credible account" of what happened to it in the consulate.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Twitter that if the news of Khashoggi's death is confirmed, "it would be a horrible, utterly deplorable and utterly unacceptable attack on press freedom."
In an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, Prince Mohammed said that the journalist had left the consulate and that the Turkish authorities could search the building, which is Saudi sovereign territory.
"We are ready to invite the Turkish government to search our premises," he said, adding that "we would allow them to go in and do research and do whatever they want to do. We have nothing to hide. "
The Saudi Crown Prince also stated that he understood that Khashoggi had entered the consulate but "came out after a few minutes or an hour".
"We are investigating this through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to see exactly what happened at that time," he added.
According to his fiancée Cengiz, Khashoggi would have visited the consulate to receive an official document attesting to his marriage.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassador of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the US State Department said: "We are not able to confirm this information, but we are following the situation closely."
– & # 39; Critical Review & # 39; –
Khashoggi fled the country in September 2017, a few months after Prince Mohammed was appointed heir to the throne, as part of a campaign that saw the arrest of dozens of dissidents, including intellectuals and Islamic preachers.
The reporter said that he had been banned from writing in the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, owned by Saudi Prince Khaled bin Sultan al-Saud, about his defense of the Muslim Brotherhood that Riyadh placed on the blacklist of terrorist organizations.
He also criticized Saudi Arabia's role in Yemen, where Riyadh is leading a military coalition alongside the government in its war against Iran-backed rebels.
The Washington Post chose to leave an empty space where Khashoggi's column would have figured in his Friday edition, supporting the missing writer.
In an article published this week by Al-Jazeera, journalist and analyst Bill Law described Khashoggi as "a brilliant journalist with a fiercely independent mind but pragmatic enough to know how far he could go near the red lines" .
"This is a thoughtful and wise commentary voice that the Saudi Crown Prince should listen to," Law wrote, stating that he had known Khashoggi for 16 years.
Saudi Arabia, ranked 169th out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), has launched a modernization campaign since the appointment of Prince Mohammed to inherit of the throne.
But the ultra-conservative kingdom, which appealed last June for lifting the ban on driving women, has been hotly criticized for its treatment of dissent.
Khashoggi's criticism of Prince Mohammed's policy was published in the Arab and Western press.
In an editorial published March 6 in The Guardian with Robert Lacey, he wrote: "For his internal reform program, the crown prince deserves praise, but at the same time, the courageous and abrasive young innovator has not encouraged allowed no popular debate "on the changes.
