The fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi denounces his disappearance at the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul

ISTANBUL – The sleepless nights are hidden under the eyes of Hatice Cengiz as she recounts the last moments she saw her fiancé before he disappeared at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to finalize the papers of their wedding. She is accompanied by two Turkish policemen in plain clothes. She is scared.

"I do not feel really alive anymore," she said. "I can not sleep. I do not eat. "

It has been almost a week since Cengiz, 36, last seen the man she was supposed to marry, Jamal Khashoggi, a well-known Saudi journalist and journalist and critic of the Saudi government. She is the only witness of her disappearance inside.

She had said to wait for him near the front door. "Well, darling," he said before turning to the stocky yellow structure that lacks the grandeur of many of the kingdom's diplomatic buildings.

Khashoggi, 59, has not heard from since. Turkish officials said he believed he had been killed inside a planned murder. A team of 15 Saudis arrived on board two planes to carry out the murder, officials said.

Cengiz did not learn if Khashoggi was alive or dead. On Monday, she was interrogated for the second time by the police. They took some of her clothes and other personal items for DNA samples, she said.

The Saudi authorities insist that Khashoggi leave the consulate alive through a rear entrance. Consulate officials refused requests for maintenance.

If his death were confirmed, this would represent a new degree of daring in the suppression of dissent by Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. While posing as a reformer, Mohammed was ruthless in the face of any challenge to his power, imprisoning activists and dissidents.

Once close to the Saudi establishment, Khashoggi became one of the most prominent critics of his history, living in Virginia in voluntary exile and contributing to the Washington Post's Global Opinions section.

The key to the Turkish investigation could be a video surveillance of streets adjacent to the consulate. At least six closed-circuit cameras are placed at the Consulate's main entrance, next to its barbed wire walls. Some are maintained by the Turkish police.

When police questioned Cengiz for the first time, the day Khashoggi disappeared, she presented a still from one of the cameras that was mounting it.

"Is the one?" They asked him. She confirmed that it was in the black jacket that he wore.

At least four cameras monitor the garage and the rear entrance. Three others are pointed towards the road next to the rear entrance, mounted in a primary school across the street. The information was retrieved by Turkish intelligence services, according to ISS, the company responsible for security on the site.

Cengiz said she interrupted her classes at the university where she is preparing a doctorate to accompany Khashoggi to the consulate around 13 hours. last Tuesday. They spent the taxi ride discussing their future.

Cengiz's father had agreed to the wedding last month when Khashoggi went to ask for his hand. Turan Kislakci, a Khashoggi friend and translator, said that her father was initially skeptical because of the age difference.

Khashoggi had bought an apartment they had built in Istanbul.

In an interview with The Post, she told their love story, as she had done for the police earlier in the day. The two men met at a conference in May. Cengiz has an interest in the states of the Persian Gulf and she said that she admired Khashoggi's work before their meeting. He was a speaker at the conference and she asked him a question. She then asked if they could talk more deeply. They sat in a corner and talked.

They stayed in touch and then met during his visit to Istanbul. "The connection has become stronger and stronger," she said.

Since the disappearance of Khashoggi, some pro-Saudi online accounts are wondering if Cengiz is part of a plot to discredit the kingdom.

In response, she scrolls the selfies of both in summer, smiling and in a hurry. "I really exist and he is my fiance," she said.

Khashoggi was relatively comfortable with the approach of the Saudi Arabian consulate, she said. He had worried before their first visit to the mission a week earlier.

"He said at one point:" Maybe it's better if I do not leave, "she said." He was worried that something could happen. "

But he had changed his mind.

Kislakci, who heads the Turkish-Arab Media Association, said that he had requested assurances on Khashoggi's security from people close to Mohammed whom he knew, as well as a Another friend in London, who refused to be named.

Khashoggi was determined to get married, said Cengiz and his friends. To marry a Turkish national in Turkey, he needed a document proving that he was divorced. He had been well treated during his first visit to the consulate and had been ordered to return within a week.

It was around 16 hours. when Cengiz began to understand that something was really wrong.
She checked the closing time of the consulate on the Internet – 3:30 pm

"That's when I started asking," Where did Jamal go? "She called a friend while she was walking to the door." My friend said I did not look normal when I called her. " she said, "I was out of my mind."

She asked a guard, "Where is Jamal?"

She called the consulate: "Where is Jamal? I'm waiting at the entrance. Jamal came in and did not go out.

A man came to the entrance. "There is nobody inside," he says.

Khashoggi had previously asked him to call an advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan if anything happened to him. She did it. And she reported the disappearance to the police.

But reliable information has been slow to come from the Turkish authorities. She is frustrated by the lack of information that she has received.

"As a fiancée, close to Jamal and in love with Jamal, I expect information from my government about what happened to her," she said. "Where is Jamal?"

But ultimately, she says, it is up to the Saudis to back up their story.

"It is Saudi Arabia's responsibility to explain and prove how Jamal came out and where and when," she said.

Until she has evidence to the contrary, Cengiz continues to believe that he may be alive.

She returns to her latest SMS. "The house is beautiful, in the image of its owner," he wrote about their apartment.

"I do not lose hope," she said. "I hope we will soon learn what has happened to him and I still have the hope that he is alive." But I need to know where is Jamal? I need to know what happened to him. "

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