Saudi Arabia has agreed to let Turkish police search its consulate in Istanbul, Turkey said Tuesday, as a photograph emerged showing Jamal Khashoggi shortly before his disappearance. The Turkish foreign ministry said Saudi Arabia would allow investigators into the consulate for the first time since Mr Khashoggi, a journalist critical of the Saudi government, disappeared last Tuesday. Turkish officials have privately alleged that Mr Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered inside the consulate, although Ankara has not officially made the accusation. Saudi Arabia has vehemently denied the charge and insists that Mr Khashoggi left the consulate safely last week after filing paperwork related to his upcoming marriage. The Washington Post, where Mr Khashoggi wrote opinion articles, published a still CCTV image of the journalist going into the public entrance of the consulate. It is the last known picture of him. The image, apparently taken from a camera on a Turkish police guard post outside the consulate, is time stamped at 1.14pm on October 2, 2018. Turkish officials have said that if Mr Khashoggi ever left the consulate he would have come out the same door and his exit would have been captured on the same camera. The door which Mr Khashoggi entered before his disappearance Credit: Photo by Onur Coban/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, challenged Saudi Arabia to prove its claim that Mr Khashoggi ever left the consulate. "If he left, you have to prove it with footage,” he said. Hatice Cengiz, Mr Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancee, was waiting outside the consulate gates and realised something had gone wrong when the consulate shut at 3.30pm and he still had not emerged. Ms Cengiz said she was “not giving up hope” that Mr Khashoggi was still alive, despite the grisly reports in the Turkish media. “I hope we will soon learn what happened to him, and I still have hope that he is alive. But I need to know, where is Jamal? I have to know what has happened to him,” she told The Washington Post. Ms Cengiz said she was frustrated at how little information she had received from Turkish authorities but said ultimately it is “the responsibility of Saudi Arabia to explain and prove how Jamal exited and from where and when”. Donald Trump, the US president, said he was “concerned” by the case amid widespread media attention in the US. Mr Khashoggi's fiancee said she was still holding out hope that he was alive Credit: AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File The US State Department later called on Saudi Arabia “to support a thorough investigation of Mr. Khashoggi's disappearance and to be transparent about the results of that investigation”. Turkish investigators are focused on two private Gulfstream jets which landed in Istanbul on the day Mr Khashoggi disappeared, according to several pro-government Turkish newspapers. One jet, carrying nine people, allegedly landed in the early hours of October 2. Its passengers checked into two hotels near the consulate and booked rooms until October 5. However, all nine apparently checked out the same day and returned to the airport, where they flew on to the UAE. The second jet, carrying six people, reportedly landed later in the day. Its passengers went straight to the consulate and then left in the evening for Egypt. Both flights allegedly later returned to Riyadh. Investigators reportedly believe that Mr Khashoggi’s body might have been smuggled out of the consulate in diplomatic vans and then carried onto one of the planes. The details will add to pressure on the Saudi government to explain who the 15 Saudis were and what they were doing during their brief trip to Istanbul. Meanwhile, the BBC published off-air audio from an interview Mr Khashoggi gave in London, three days before he disappeared. “I don’t think I will be able to go home,” he said, when asked whether he thought he could return to Saudi Arabia. The BBC was criticised on social media for airing the recordings without Mr Khashoggi’s consent and before there is any definitive proof of his death.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Post has published a new column by missing Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in which he warns that governments in the Middle East "have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate."
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