Turkish officials on Monday asked permission to search the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul after they say dissident Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed while visiting the facility last week.
The officials said Khashoggi, who was a Washington Post contributor, was killed when he went to the consulate last Tuesday to get paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancee and his body was removed.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was following the investigation.
Saudi officials rejected the accusations as baseless.
They claimed Khashoggi, 59, left the building, but his fiancee who was waiting outside said she never saw him exit.
Turkish media said 15 Saudis aboard two plans landed in Istanbul and were inside the consulate the day Khashoggi went missing. The report didn’t say when the group arrived.
Khashoggi fled Saudi Arabia and was living in self-imposed exile in the US following a crackdown on intellectuals who criticized the rule of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a US ally in the region.
Khashoggi’s colleagues gathered outside the consulate and called for information about his disappearance.
“We would like to know exactly what happened inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and the circumstances surrounding his disappearance,” Mohamed Okad, founder of Insight into Crisis, a conflict advisory group, told the Associated Press. “We demand from the international community to pressure Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman to tell us exactly what happened.”
With Post Wires
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