The chief public prosecutor’s office in the city of Istanbul in Turkey on Wednesday said Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in the city earlier this month, and his body was disposed of, The Guardian reported. Irfan Fidan’s office said negotiations with his Saudi counterpart Saud al-Mojeb have not brought “concrete results”.
Turkey has asked Saudi Arabia to provide details about the body’s location, Independent reported.
Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the Saudi regime, was living in self-imposed exile in the United States since 2017. He was last seen entering the consulate on October 2. Saudi Arabia initially claimed to have no information about Khashoggi’s disappearance but later admitted he was killed by agents working without Riyadh’s knowledge. On October 24, the office of Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor also accepted that Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated.
The country is under mounting international pressure, with several nations accusing it of a cover-up. on Wednesday. France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian cast doubt on Saudi Arabia’s investigation into Khashoggi’s death, saying “not enough” was being done to find those responsible for his murder, AFP reported. “This crime has to be punished and the perpetrators identified,” Le Drian added. “The truth needs to come out. And today, even though Saudi authorities have admitted that there was a murder, it is not enough. The truth has not been revealed.”
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