18 days after Khashoggi's disappearance at his country's embassy in Istanbul, Saudi Arabia finally confessed to his death for what he said was a quarrel with his hands that broke out between him and people he met at the consulate, leading to his death.
The long-delayed story adds that "Khashoggi was not ordered to be killed or kidnapped", but there is a permanent order from the intelligence chief to return the opponents to the kingdom, but the orders were "violently interpreted" and that the instructions "were not more specific" Khashoggi's death and attempt to cover up his death.
But this account has scoffed at all those who follow the case that filled the world and preoccupied people, with the exception of US President Donald Trump, who said it appeared to be a "credible account." This was a view in which observers saw an attempt to get his Saudi allies out of the crisis and save a $ 110 billion arms deal with Riyadh.
Members of the US Congress questioned the credibility of the Saudi story of events, and even Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's most prominent allies, wrote that "to say that I doubt the new Saudi novel about Khashoggi does not satisfy my right."
In turn, Republican Senator Bob Korker said Saudi Arabia's account of Khashoggi's disappearance, which is changing every day, makes it difficult to consider her latest novel as credible.
In the Democratic camp, Sen. Chris Murphy said the new Saudi interpretation of Khashoggi's death was absurd, while Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said the Riyadh novel smelled of concealment.
The United Nations also expressed "deep concern" after Saudi Arabia officially confirmed the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and called for an impartial investigation to reveal those involved in the operation and those responsible for it, urging not to rush to believe the official version of the incident.
| Jamal Khashoggi as he entered the Saudi Embassy in Ankara (Turkish Press) |
A Changing Novel
Members of Congress, international organizations and human rights activists may be tempted not to believe the novel, whose episodes seem to be unconnected and require many improvements to make sense and answer the questions that are still mostly on the table.
Khashoggi, who entered his consulate office on October 2 for an official document that would allow him to marry his fiancée Khadija Genghis, was waiting outside the embassy. Salman himself. The consulate then issued the first statement saying Khashoggi had disappeared after leaving the consulate building and was following up with the Turkish authorities.
Two days later, the Saudi consul in Istanbul, Mohammed al-Otaibi, opened the consulate headquarters for Reuters reporters and accompanied them on a tour inside the consulate to confirm that Khashoggi was not inside. The consul denied the news of Khashoggi's assassination, confirming that he had left the consulate, but added that the surveillance cameras at the consulate did not keep photographs, so his departure could not be confirmed.
In Washington, Saudi Ambassador Khalid bin Salman said that his consulate's cameras in Istanbul were "not recorded" on Khashoggi's visit, which Turkey rejected.
At the same time, international media reports were talking about Khashoggi's torture and killing immediately after entering the consulate and cutting his body out of the consulate. The media also began talking about a team of 15 Saudis, including officials, who came to Istanbul aboard two private planes and carried out the assassination inside the consulate .
| Khashoggi's puzzle .. Turkish investigators mimic the facts of the incident (the island) |
Missing rings
Regardless of the fact that the recognition of Khashoggi's death inside the consulate after two weeks of denial weakens the Saudi official narrative, there are important questions that would further widen the circle of rejection of this novel, which appears to have been heard only by Trump and the e-flies.
The arrival of 15 Saudi men with high security and intelligence jobs came in private planes to the consulate before Khashoggi came and left the same day after his death. It makes it difficult to talk about the accidental death of the journalist during a regular quarrel with people at the consulate, the official said.
Activists and observers say that the death of a person during a fight inside the consulate requires, in normal cases, the request for ambulance and consular security for the disengagement, which was not in the case of Khashoggi, why it took 18 days to declare a victim as a result of a quarrel that could be announced on time and passes the matter Normally?
They say the killing of a person in a fight at Sadi's headquarters does not usually require the dismissal of media and intelligence figures like Ahmed Asiri, the second man in the intelligence service, and Saud al-Qahtani, a close adviser to Ibn Salman and the media policy engineer under his rule.
What is more suspicious is that Khashoggi's body has not been found so far, which raises the question of the secret of hiding or disposing of it, because the killing of a person in a regular quarrel and a hand fight inside a consulate does not require hiding the body and erasing the traces of the crime, Law.
In addition to the above, the Turkish security sources say that the criminal investigation team accurately reached the place where Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate, and identified the killers and the victim in the room where the killing took place, and that the team listened to the recordings before the Saudi consulate.