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BEIRUT, Lebanon – Eighteen days after the assassination of Saudi Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, his government finally exposed his account of what happened.
President Trump seems to be giving the Saudis the benefit of the doubt, but many others, including Khashoggi's friends and Turkish and American officials, are not buying it.
What happened to Mr. Khashoggi on October 2 remains open to debate in part because of the way the details became public.
The Turkish leadership largely refrained from publicly accusing the Saudis, but the country's security officials have leaked a flood of details that testify to a horrific murder. In their testimony, published in anonymous statements to the media, Mr. Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside the consulate by a team of 15 men sent from Riyadh for this purpose.
Saudi Arabia's new story suggests that these men were trying to bring Mr. Khashoggi back to his home country, but when he resisted, a fight broke out and he was put into a deadly suffocation. Many details of Saudi history have also been provided anonymously.
So how are the competing stories superimposed? Here are some of the issues raised by the stories.
Where is the body?
Nobody seems to know.
The Turks claimed that Mr. Khashoggi's body was cut by an autopsy specialist using a bone saw before being transported out of the consulate in large suitcases and thrown into an unknown location, possibly to be a forest.
A Saudi official, however, said the team handed Mr. Khashoggi's body to a local "collaborator". The manager, who requested anonymity, did not reveal the nationality of the person, a detail that the team could apparently provide easily.
Some have speculated that the introduction of this unknown could allow the Saudis to evade responsibility for the condition of Mr. Khashoggi's corpse if and when he was found. The Saudis could say they were not involved.
Turkish officials announced Saturday that they were expecting to find the body again soon.
What is the proof?
Little concrete evidence has been made public either way, although the Turks have provided much more detail to support their story than the Saudis.
Turkish information included names of members of the Saudi team and photos of them at the airport, in their hotels and near the consulate. Many men have links with the Saudi army and security services.
The New York Times was able to corroborate the identity of most of the team members and establish that at least four of them had frequently traveled abroad with the de facto ruler of the country, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as part of his security duties.
Among them was General Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, an intelligence officer who had been photographed near the Crown Prince during visits to Paris, Madrid, Houston, Boston and the United Nations.
Another suspect, Salah al-Tubaigy, is a well-known Saudi specialist in autopsy and related to security forces.
The Saudi official confirmed that the two were part of the team of 15 people, but said that Dr. Tubaigy was not asked for his expertise in treating corpses, but for his experience in forensic science and his ability to extract evidence from the scene of the crime.
The Saudi official said the Turks had mostly managed to identify the team members, although there were some mistakes that he attributed to the spelling of the names . He did not provide the identities of the rest of the team.
Why did the Saudis take so long to publish their story?
In the 18 days since Khashoggi's disappearance, Saudi officials repeatedly denied any information about his whereabouts and claimed that he had left the consulate.
A summary of the chronology:
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October 5: Crown Prince Mohammed told Bloomberg reporters that Mr. Khashoggi had left the consulate after "a few minutes or an hour."
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October 6: The Saudi consul Reuters reporters toured the consulate, letting them take a look in wardrobes, air conditioners and toilets to show that Mr. Khashoggi was not there. "We are worried about this case," said the consul.
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October 9: The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Khalid bin Salman, writes that the information that Mr. Khashoggi was arrested or killed would be "absolutely false and unfounded".
It was only Saturday – 18 days after Mr. Khashoggi's disappearance – that the Saudis acknowledged that he had been killed inside the consulate by Saudi agents.
In an attempt to explain the delay, the Saudi official said the team members tried to conceal the killing of Mr. Khashoggi for fear of creating problems. It was only when Turkish officials suggested that he had been killed that their superiors had investigated and learned about the murder.
It is unclear why the team was not required to report the results of the mission to their superiors.
What about the bone seen?
Before Dr. Tubaigy was publicly identified, Turkish officials said that a person with his expertise was part of the Saudi team and that she had entered the country with a bone saw, instrument commonly used in autopsies. Dr. Tubaigy used the saw to dismember Mr. Khashoggi's corpse while listening to music and encouraging his colleagues to do the same, said Turkish officials by publishing the details of an alleged audio recording.
This is not true, said the Saudis.
"There was absolutely no bone saw," said the Saudi official. Dr. Tubaigy was present in case evidence such as fingerprints had to be erased, said the official.
Is there a recording of the murder?
This is not yet clear.
Turkish officials have repeatedly suggested that they have both a video and an audio recording of Mr. Khashoggi's murder. Now, the Turks say that they have audio, the source of some of the most sordid details they've given about murder. But they have not made public audio or shared with intelligence agencies from other countries, such as the United States.
This could be due to various reasons: because it does not exist; because the Turks consider that the ultimate asset is to crush the Saudi story; or because they do not want to acknowledge that they have put the Saudi consulate at the door. This would be a violation of the diplomatic protocol and could embarrass Turkey.
Did the Saudi Crown Prince order a murder?
Saudi Arabia denies that its leaders ordered the operation against Mr. Khashoggi or did not even know it had taken place until a few days later. According to the Saudi official, the intelligence services of the kingdom were ordered to bring the dissidents back home, but the directive in the case of Mr. Khashoggi became more aggressive as he passed through the chain of command.
But many Turkish and American officials doubt that such an operation could be orchestrated without the knowledge of Prince Mohammed, who has consolidated considerable power.
The operation involved two private jets from a Saudi royal family-related company and a number of the 15 men named as suspects had close ties to the Crown Prince.
"It is impossible for a crime to be committed in the consulate of a country – in particular, according to allegations, committed by employees of the public sector – without the officials of this country are aware of it," said Numan Kurtulmuş, Acting President of the Turkish Party for Justice and Development.
Where does the survey go from here?
Saudi Arabia and Turkey have promised to continue searching until the truth is revealed, although it is unclear how long it will take and whether their dueling stories will converge.
"We will not let things stay covered," said Omer Celik, spokesman for the ruling party in Turkey. "We will use every opportunity we have to reveal what has happened, and that is the intention of our president."
The Saudi prosecutor said on Saturday that the kingdom's investigation would continue in order to "reveal and announce all the facts, to hold all those involved in the case accountable and to bring them to justice".
But there are few examples of Saudi authorities who have investigated and held the leaders of the powerful royal family to blame.
