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Was the Saudi journalist murdered at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul Turkey?

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Was the Saudi journalist murdered at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul?

Was the Saudi journalist murdered at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul Turkey? This is the question everybody has been asking for the past few days.

There has been no news from Saudi Arabian journalist Cemal Ahmet KASIKCI (Jamal Khashoggi) since his entry to Saudi Arabia’s Consulate General in Istanbul, on October 2nd. Turkish officials claim KASIKCI was killed in the consulate while Saudi officials deny the allegations.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry announced on October 9th Turkish officials will make investigation at the consulate. Cemal Kaşıkçı was considered as the most important one, among the journalists who are known to oppose the administration of Saudi Arabia.

On October 2nd Cemal Kaşıkçı entered the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul to receive the necessary documents to divorce his wife in Saudi Arabia.

Hatice Cengiz, his fiancee was not allowed to enter the building and was waiting outside. Later all the employees working at the consulate-general returned home but the journalist did not come out of the building. That is when his fiancée understood something had gone wrong.

Before the journalist entered the building he had said to his fiancée “If I do not come out, inform the Turkish Arab Association officials and the AKP Deputy Chairman Yasin Aktay”. Cengiz did make concerned calls to deliver the message.

That is when people started sharing messages on Twitte saying Kaşıkçı had not come out of the consulate.

The government of Saudi Arabia has announced that they were following the news that Kaşikçı had disappeared and that they were working with the Turkish authorities to find him. The Turkish authorities have maintained that KASIKCI is still in the building and that an official invitation is required to be able to investigate. Because of the 1975 Vienna Convention, the consular and diplomatic missions have inviolability.

On the other hand, DHA news agency, shared that a group of 15 people altogether had come to Turkey on October 2nd (supported with images from security cameras). According to these images the first aircraft flying from Riyadh and carrying 9 people landed at Atatürk airport at 03:28. The group that left the hotel between 19:57-20:11 went to the airport in a vehicle belonging to the consulate. At 21:00 the group left Turkey on 2 separate planes.

However, Saudi Arabia says no delegations were sent to Istanbul on October 2 adding the first delegation went to Turkey on October 6 Saturday, to help the investigation.

President Erdogan, on the other hand said in a press conference on his visit to Hungary, “The fact this event has happened in our country and in Saudi Arabia consulate in specific, is very important for us. It is our duty as the President of the Republic of Turkey, to follow this process, in terms of both political and humanitarian reasons. The officials at the consulate cannot wash their hands of by saying “The journalist went out – left the building”. If he did they must prove it“.

In any case the picture tells us the Saudi officials are going to have a hard time to account for what has happened to the journalist unless they can show his video images showing his departure from the building.

Who is Cemal Kaşıkçı?

Cemal Kaşıkçı was born in Medina, Saudi Arabia on 13 October 1958.  He graduated from Indiana State University in the USA in 1985 and then started working as a journalist.

After duty on many media establishments, he worked for four years at the head of Arab News. He worked there for 52 days at the editorial office of Al Watan where he was dismissed after publishing articles criticizing the religious structure in the country.

Kaşıkçı, who left the country on this occasion, was appointed as the advisor to Prince Turki al Faisal, who was the ambassador of Saudi Arabia in the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2008, he was reinstated as editor-in-chief of Al Watan and was again dismissed in 2010 for critical articles published in the newspaper.

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