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Saudi operatives beat, drugged, killed and dismembered a dissident Saudi journalist in the presence of the kingdom’s top diplomat in Istanbul, Turkish officials said Tuesday, as Washington urged Riyadh to provide answers.
President Trump cautioned that Saudi Arabia should be considered innocent until proven guilty. His secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on a visit to the kingdom, said Saudi leaders had “strongly denied” involvement and were conducting “a serious and credible investigation.”
The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a former royal insider, has strained U.S.-Saudi tiesand sparked international outrage. He was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago. Saudi Arabia has denied any role in his disappearance.
Mr. Trump has put Saudi Arabia and its crown prince at the center of a Middle East policy aimed at challenging Iran, Riyadh’s main rival in the region, brokering an end to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis and countering extremism. Mr. Trump chose Saudi Arabia as the site of his first overseas presidential trip. The U.S. leader has emphasized the importance for U.S. jobs of the Saudi’s purchasing of billions of dollars of U.S. military hardware.
In an interview with the Associated Press Tuesday, Mr. Trump compared the allegations that Saudi agents had killed Mr. Khashoggi to the accusations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was sworn in last week after a bruising confirmation process. “Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Mr. Trump said. “We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I’m concerned.”
Turkish officials said they shared evidence in recent days, including the details of an audio recording, with both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to support their conclusion that Mr. Khashoggi was killed at the hand of Saudi operatives. It wasn’t clear how Turkish officials had an audio recording.
The recording indicates how Mr. Khashoggi was killed in the office of the Saudi consul general, Mohammad al-Otaibi, minutes after he walked into the consulate building on Oct. 2, said people familiar with the matter. Mr. Khashoggi wasn’t interrogated, the people said. Instead, he was beaten up, drugged and killed by Saudi operatives who had flown in from Riyadh earlier in the day, the people said.
Then, on the recording, a voice can be heard inviting the consul to leave the room, the people familiar with the matter said. The voice of a man Turkish authorities identified as Saudi forensic specialist Salah Al Tabiqi can be heard recommending other people present to listen to some music while he dismembered Mr. Khashoggi’s body, the people said.
Turkish investigators spent nine hours searching for clues inside the Saudi diplomatic premises on Monday and early Tuesday. Complicating the search, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was the fact that some rooms had been freshly repainted.
Tensions between Turkey and Saudi Arabia surfaced on Tuesday when Turkish investigators then sought to search the nearby consul’s residence. In an unexpected development, Mr. Otaibi, the consul general, left Turkey for the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Tuesday afternoon and Saudi authorities informed Ankara that the residence was off limits, according to the people familiar with the matter.
The latest Turkish allegations could complicate the Saudi government’s efforts to provide an explanation of what happened to Mr. Khashoggi while distancing itself from any direct responsibility.
On Monday, Saudi authorities had weighed whether to declare that unauthorized operatives killed Mr. Khashoggi during a botched interrogation, according to people familiar with the situation. It wasn’t known whether they were still considering that.
Turkish officials have said they suspect the Saudi crown prince had a hand in Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance because some of the operatives who took part in the alleged killing appear to have ties to him. Turkish investigators have focused on a pair of Gulfstream jets that landed in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and flew back to Riyadh on Oct. 3 after layovers. The planes belong to a company, Sky Prime Aviation Services Ltd., that was seized by the Saudi government after its anticorruption drive last year.
Among those on board, according to Turkish officials, were Waleed Abdullah Alshehri and Thaar Ghaleb al Harbi. Saudi press reports from 2016 identified Mr. Alshehri as a Saudi Air Force major; Turkish officials refer to him as a forensic expert. Mr. Harbi was promoted to lieutenant by the crown prince for his role in defending the royal family’s Al Salam palace in Jeddah during an attack in October 2017, according to Saudi press reports.
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