ISTANBUL (AP) — Surveillance footage aired by Turkish media on Wednesday purports to show a team of Saudis arriving in Istanbul the day Jamal Khashoggi went missing, a black van leaving the Saudi Consulate after he entered, and the team checking out and departing the country later that night. Turkish media, which released surveillance camera video of the men on Wednesday, said they were members of an elite Saudi “assassination squad,” sent to kill Khashoggi, a Saudi critic. The Post, citing anonymous U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence, said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered an operation to lure Khashoggi from his home in Virginia to Saudi Arabia and then detain him. Adding to the macabre mystery, a Turkish official told The Associated Press that one member of the team in the Oct. 2 video was an “autopsy expert.”

Saudi Arabia has dismissed allegations it played a role in Khashoggi’s disappearance as “baseless,” but it has offered no evidence to support its contention he left the consulate unharmed last week and vanished into Istanbul while his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, waited outside.
Turkish officials claim to have audio and video evidence of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi being tortured and murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.