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Since then, officials and journalists have striven to reconstruct the story of Jamal Khashoggi.
CCTV footage, flight tracking, intercepted communications and even a bone saw served as pieces of a puzzle that sparked a diplomatic outcry.
According to a senior official quoted by The New York Times, top Turkish security officials have concluded that the "highest levels of the royal court" in Saudi Arabia had ordered Khashoggi's assassination.
The official called the operation "fast and complex", killing Khashoggi less than two hours after his arrival at the consulate. The agents "dismembered his body with a saw provided for this purpose," said the official at the New York Times. "It's like Pulp Fiction," he added.
Khashoggi, a former Saudi royal court insider turned journalist, disappeared last Tuesday after joining his country's consulate in Istanbul. His case sparked calls for inquiries from the kingdom's most fervent Western allies, including the United States, where Khashoggi had applied for permanent residence.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, the United Kingdom and France have also issued statements. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned that the UK would "handle the incident seriously" if the information provided by the media was correct.
A mystery of murder?
Saudi Arabia repeatedly denied Turkey's story, saying that Khashoggi had left the embassy the same day he arrived. In a statement to CNN on Monday, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Khalid bin Salman, attacked "various malicious leaks and sinister rumors" suggesting that Khashoggi would have been killed or arrested by Saudi authorities. The ambassador – a brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – said the information was "absolutely false and unfounded".
US officials would also have evidence that Saudi Arabia had planned to arrest Khashoggi. The Washington Post newspaper – for which the Khashoggi newspaper has been working – citing a person familiar with this information, said the US intelligence services had intercepted communications from Saudi officials discussing a journalist's capture plan. The Saudis wanted to bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and lay hands on him, the newspaper source said.
It was unclear whether the Saudis intended to arrest and interrogate Khashoggi or kill him, or if the United States had warned him that he was not going to kill him. he was a target, the source told the Washington Post.
Khashoggi's fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, implored Trump "to help shed light" on his disappearance in an editorial released Tuesday by the Washington Post.
The Saudi authorities have not responded to CNN's request for their comments.
surveillance camera
CCTV footage in and around the consulate premises has become a central part of the investigation into Khashoggi's fate.
A video surveillance image obtained by CNN showed the missing Saudi journalist entering the Saudi consulate on Tuesday (October 2nd).
Erdogan asked the Saudis to make their case by producing surveillance footage of Khashoggi leaving the embassy.
On Tuesday, The Guardian newspaper announced that the staff of the consulate in Turkey had been ordered to take a day off the day of Khashoggi's disappearance. Turkish investigators also reported that security images from the consulate had been removed and returned to Saudi Arabia by a private plane.
During a six-story consulate visit given to reporters on Saturday, Saudi Arabia's consul general, Mohammad al-Otaibi, told Reuters that, if the consulate was equipped with cameras, it would not be possible to use the camera. had not recorded footage showing the entry or exit of Khashoggi.
A brigade of assassination of 15 men?
Turkish officials also said 15 men had been flown to Turkey to carry out the alleged killing.
The 15 Saudis, including several officials, arrived in Istanbul and visited the consulate while Khashoggi was inside, a statement from Turkish police said, according to the official Anadolu news agency.
Two jet planes belonging to a Riyadh-based company in charge of public procurement and public works, were probably involved in transporting the Saudis to Istanbul, according to a source familiar with the schedule and flight route.
The flight tracking data also provide evidence of the arrival of aircraft in Istanbul.
On Wednesday, local Turkish media published photos and names of the 15 men who they said would have been behind the operation.
Fear of dissidents abroad
In conversations between CNN and five Saudi dissidents and Saudi human rights groups, they all said they did not consider the possibility of Khashoggi's assassination before the reports published in Turkey on Saturday.
The activists said that they previously thought that the worst scenario of Khashoggi's fate would be to be detained and jailed in Saudi Arabia by diplomatic means.
If the information is true, said a London-based dissident, then Khashoggi would have been killed because his former status as an insider at the royal court would have earned him a "black box". Saudi state ", deprived of many of its secrets.
According to activists, Khashoggi is more "dangerous" to the Saudi state than the average dissident – clerics to defenders of women's rights – targeted by the kingdom after a wave of arrests a year.
"He made it clear that no one was safe," Human Rights Watch researcher Adam Coogle told CNN in the Middle East. "I think that Saudis abroad will be reluctant to do anything, I think they'll be afraid of being caught in the street."
An activist aware of the events that led to Khashoggi's entry to the consulate said that Saudi officials had given the journalist the assurance that it would be safe for him to enter. The Saudi consulate said: "No, do not worry, you're welcome here … so he did not take the proper precaution," London activist Yahya Assiri told CNN.
"Some of his friends suggested to him to go with a lawyer or to let the police or the Turkish intelligence services know that he was going there." He warned no one, "he said. informed that his fiancee and he left with her and they did not let her in., "he added.
"So he did not take enough precautions, he had complete confidence in the state."
The international influence of Khashoggi
Khashoggi is widely regarded as the most prominent critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The journalist exiled himself last June, when Ben Salman was named first on the throne. Since then, he has frequently published opinions in the Washington Post, criticizing a Crown Prince who has portrayed himself as an avant-garde reformer.
Bin Salman has advanced a number of social reforms, such as lifting the ban on driving women, and has limited the powers of the country's ultraconservative religious police. He also led a restructuring of the Saudi economy, privatizing many of its most important sectors.
But in the process, he also ordered a far-reaching crackdown to crush dissent, stopping critics both inside and outside the kingdom's borders. The so – called bin Salman detractors said bin Salman 's "detractors" saw last year as an "anti – corruption purge" aimed at princes and prominent businessmen.
Khashoggi, former editor of the state-run Al Watan newspaper, had a strong network of contacts, both national and foreign. He was also advisor to the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal, and had considerable access to several Saudi kings and their courts.
His insight into the functioning of the Saudi state, his international stature and his frequent criticism of bin Salman may have been considered too powerful a mix for Saudi rulers. But if it would have caused the authorities to detain or even kill, it remains to see Jamal Khashoggi.
