In a subsequent statement issued early Thursday, the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul said “it was following-up on the media reports of the disappearance of Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi after he left the building of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.” The statement added that the consulate was “carrying out follow-up procedures in coordination with the Turkish local authorities to uncover the circumstances of the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi after departing the Consulate.”<doc-sep>After several of his friends were arrested, his column was cancelled by the Al-Hayat newspaper and he was allegedly warned to stop tweeting, Khashoggi left Saudi Arabia for the US, from where he wrote opinion pieces for the Washington Post and continued to appear on Arab and Western TV channels.<doc-sep>Jamal Khashoggi, a well-known Saudi Arabian journalist and Washington Post columnist who has been critical of his country’s government, vanished last week. His disappearance is straining Turkey-Saudi relations and could complicate Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s recent attempts to recast his government as forward-thinking and reform-minded — as well as his country’s close relationship with the US. The 59-year-old veteran journalist was last seen on October 2 walking into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He was there to obtain a document verifying his divorce so that he could marry his Turkish fiancée. But what happened next is a mystery. Turkish officials have said they have “concrete” evidence that Khashoggi never left the building and was murdered there; some have even put forth gruesome theories of how his body may have been dismembered and smuggled out. The Saudi government, however, says it had nothing to do with his disappearance and maintains that he left through a back entrance, though it has provided no evidence to support that. A Saudi official told me in an email on Monday that “Jamal’s disappearance is a matter of grave concern to us, and we categorically reject any allegations of involvement in his disappearance.” Amid the ongoing investigation, relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey have quickly soured. The mystery is shaking Washington as well: Khashoggi is a US resident and had been living in self-imposed exile in Virginia for about a year — fearful, he said, that the Saudi government would target him for his dissident views. If he was indeed murdered by his own government, it raises bigger questions about the safety of journalists, freedom of speech, and the future of Saudi relations with Turkey, the US, and others. Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told me he was very concerned about Khashoggi’s fate. “We think the Saudi authorities need to provide a credible account with evidence and testimonies to explain what happened to him,” Mansour said. “We have far more questions than answers.” Here’s what you need to know to get caught up on the story. Khashoggi was a prominent Saudi journalist who fled his country because he feared being arrested Khashoggi used to enjoy close ties to the Saudi royal family. In the early 2000s, he served as an adviser to Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal, the former director of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, while the prince was the ambassador to Washington. Khashoggi also worked as the editor of a Saudi newspaper, Al Watan. But in recent years, he had taken a more critical tack, criticizing the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS). The 33-year-old crown prince has tried to paint himself as a reformer by loosening restrictions on women driving and opening up cinemas in the Kingdom, but he’s also led a purge of opposition within his government under the guise of a crackdown on corruption and championed a bloody, brutal war with Yemen that’s left tens of thousands dead. And despite his reforms, MBS hasn’t shown any willingness to tolerate political dissent or free speech. He’s even arrested some of the activists who championed the reforms he’s pushed through. In June 2017, Khashoggi, fearing arrest, left the country. He resettled in the US, where he spent the past year living in self-imposed exile. Khashoggi became a frequent contributor to publications like the Washington Post’s global opinions section and continued to criticize the Saudi government from afar. In a column published last September titled “Saudi Arabia wasn’t always this repressive. Now it’s unbearable,” he wrote of how his hope that the crown prince would be a reform-minded voice has now given way to fear of repression. “I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice,” he wrote. “To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot. I want you to know that Saudi Arabia has not always been as it is now. We Saudis deserve better.” Khashoggi also expressed concern about being targeted by the Saudi government for his views, telling journalist Robin Wright in August that the country’s new leadership would like to “see me out of the picture.” And just three days before he disappeared into the Saudi consulate in Turkey, he told BBC Newshour in an off-air interview that he doubted he’d ever be able to return to his home country. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go home,” he told the BBC, saying that in Saudi Arabia, “the people who are arrested are not even dissidents.” Three days later, his worst fears may have been realized. Khashoggi disappeared during a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul Khashoggi first went to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on September 28 to file paperwork needed for his upcoming wedding to a Turkish woman, Hatice Cengiz. On October 2, he returned to the Saudi Consulate at around 1 pm, according to Cengiz. She told the Washington Post that she waited for him by the gate outside, but that several hours later, even after the consulate had closed, there was still no sign of him. Cengiz said that she called the consulate and spoke to a guard, who told her there was no one inside. She then called the police, as well as an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as Khashoggi had instructed her to do if anything should happen to him. After several days of confusion and no sign of Khashoggi, Turkish officials said on Sunday that they believed the journalist had been murdered, according to the Washington Post. Yasin Aktay, a friend of Khashoggi’s and adviser to the Turkish president, told Reuters that he believed Khashoggi had been killed inside the Saudi Consulate, and that Turkish authorities think 15 Saudi nationals were involved. Turan Kışlakçı, the head of the Turkish-Arab Media Association and a friend of Khashoggi’s, told the Associated Press that Turkish officials he’d spoken with said Khashoggi had been murdered “in a barbaric way” and that they had evidence which they had not yet released. Other anonymous Turkish officials told news outlets that his murder had been “preplanned” and that his body had been moved from the consulate. On Monday, Turkey requested an official search of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to find evidence of the apparent crime. Saudi officials said they would allow the consulate to be inspected. Erdoğan has weighed in as well, saying that the disappearance was “very, very upsetting.” During a press conference on Monday, the Turkish president said the onus was on Saudi Arabia to prove that Khashoggi had indeed left the consulate. “The consulate officials cannot save themselves by simply saying ‘he has left,’” Erdogan said, according to Reuters. In a letter to journalists on Tuesday, Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Khalid bin Salman wrote that the Saudi government had sent a security team to work with Turkey to uncover what happened and were cooperating with Turkish authorities. “Jamal has many friends in the Kingdom, including myself, and despite our differences, and his choice to go into his so called ‘self-exile,’ we still maintained regular contact when he was in Washington,” he wrote. “Jamal is a Saudi citizen whose safety and security is a top priority for the Kingdom, just as is the case with any other citizen.” But on Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the Saudi Crown Prince had devised a plan to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and detain him, according to US intelligence intercepts of Saudi communications. The Post also reported that two planes carrying a team of 15 Saudi men arrived in Istanbul from Riyadh on the day that Khashoggi disappeared, and left later that day. Experts have speculated that these men were part of an effort to capture him and bring him back to the Kingdom — an effort that may have gone badly wrong. The journalist’s disappearance could have bigger implications for the region and Saudi’s relationship with the US Turkey and Saudi Arabia already have a strained relationship.<doc-sep>
ISTANBUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Turkish and Saudi authorities gave conflicting accounts on Wednesday about the whereabouts of Saudi commentator Jamal Khashoggi, who moved to Washington last year fearing retribution for his views and has not been seen nearly 30 hours after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancée as well as a close friend contacted by Reuters said he had disappeared after entering the diplomatic mission on Tuesday to secure documentation of his divorce so that he could remarry. The fiancée, who asked not to be named, said she had waited outside the consulate from 1 p.m local time (1000 GMT) and called the police when he had not reappeared. Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Khashoggi was still in the consulate and the government was monitoring the situation. “Our relevant authorities are in contact and engaged in negotiations with their (Saudi) counterparts. I hope this issue will be resolved with ease,” he told reporters. Saudi Arabia’s Consulate General in Istanbul said in a statement that Khashoggi had left the consulate building, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported. It said the consulate was working with Turkish authorities “to uncover the circumstances” of his disappearance. A Saudi official also denied that Khashoggi was in the consulate. “Mr. Khashoggi visited the consulate to request paperwork related to his marital status and exited shortly thereafter,” the official said. “He is not in the consulate nor in Saudi custody.” His fiancée, who returned to the consulate on Wednesday after waiting for 12 hours the day before, repudiated that claim. Slideshow ( 6 images ) “If this was true, where is he? Where is he? If he went home, no, I went to the house and didn’t find him. Where is Jamal?” she told Reuters. Turkey has had strained relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states since June 2017, when Ankara stood by Qatar in a regional row. Arab states cut trade and diplomatic ties with Qatar over alleged links to terrorism, which Doha denies. Turkey has also worked with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s arch-rival in the Middle East, to try to reduce fighting in northern Syria, and Iranian and Turkish military chiefs exchanged visits last year. The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday that it was monitoring and seeking information on Khashoggi’s disappearance. “We are closely following reports of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and continue to seek information,” a State Department official said. FAMILIAR FACE Khashoggi, a familiar face on political talk shows on Arab satellite television networks for years, has lived in self-exile in Washington, D.C., for more than a year after he said the authorities had instructed him to stop tweeting. As a journalist, he interviewed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden several times in Afghanistan and Sudan, and served twice as editor of Al Watan newspaper. Slideshow ( 6 images ) He advised Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the United States and Britain, and has also been close to billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Over the past year, Khashoggi has written regular columns in the Washington Post criticizing Saudi Arabia’s policies toward Qatar and Canada, the war in Yemen, and a crackdown on dissent and the media and activists which has seen dozens of activists, intellectuals and clerics detained. “I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice,” he wrote in September 2017. “To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot.” Ali Shihabi, head of the Arabia Foundation in Washington which regularly supports Saudi policy, expressed concern on Twitter about the reports. “Jamal and I have not seen eye to eye on many issues but having him go missing like this is awful,” he said. Mohamad Soltan, an Egyptian-American activist who sees Khashoggi regularly in Washington, told Reuters that Khashoggi was in the United States on an O-visa, a temporary residency visa awarded to foreigners “who possess extraordinary ability” in the sciences, arts, education, and other fields and are recognized internationally, and had applied for permanent residency status. All public protests are banned in Saudi Arabia, as are political parties. Labor unions are illegal, the media are controlled and criticism of the royal family can lead to prison. Dozens of activists, clerics and intellectuals have been arrested in the past year in a crackdown on potential opponents of the kingdom’s absolute rulers.