Le Figaro: Where is the body? .. Mysterious points in the details of the assassination of Khashoggi

The rebuilding of the mystery of the disappearance of Saudi reporter Jamal Khashoggi showed a year after his death what should be a horror film through secret recordings of what happened inside the Saudi consulate, which was the best evidence of this heinous crime, without providing all the details.

The newspaper's correspondent in Istanbul, Delphine Minoy, said that the thesis of the assassination imposed itself as a Muslim from the beginning, even before the first elements of the investigation confirmed, noting that excerpts from audio recordings made available to many Western diplomatic missions and published in a UN report chilling, and appear unambiguously That the crime was planned in advance.

The reporter recalled parts of her conversation with Khadija Genghis, former fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi, who says she no longer feels the passage of time.Although a year after her fiancé's assassination, it feels like it happened last week, she said, adding that her happiness stopped on October 2, 2018. At 1:14 pm when Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate.

Khadija remembers everything about that moment, from waiting to growing anxiety over time, to fear, and then the silence behind the walls of the Saudi consulate, before realizing that she would never see it.

The paper goes back to some of the details of Khashoggi's assassination, starting with the October 2 dawn raid from Riyadh on a private jet, and the dialogue that took place just before Khashoggi's entry between Maher and singer Salah al-Tabiqi on how to cut his body.

"Can we put the trunk in a bag?" "No, it's too heavy," the singer asks. "We'll cut the joints. It's not a problem. The body is heavy. First, I cut on the ground. We'll take plastic bags. We'll pack all the pieces and it's over."

The sacrificial ram
The correspondent adds that what is inconceivable at the moment for Khadija is also terrifying, that the singer asks at the end of the dialogue: Is the "ram of the sacrifice"? Before another voice announced the imminent arrival of Khashoggi, who was being taken to the second floor of the consulate, beyond the details summarized by the correspondent.

In a recent interview with the BBC, British attorney Helena Kennedy said she was deeply moved when listening to these excerpts: "The horror of listening to someone's voice, the fear of someone's voice, and being listening to something direct, it's chilling."

According to UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Kalamar, the various elements in the UN report constitute "credible evidence" that would justify an investigation into Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's links to this crime.

But as the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did in his Washington Post article, the reporter asks: "Where is Khashoggi's body? Who signed the death penalty for the Saudi journalist? Who sent the 15 murderers on two planes to Istanbul?"

The correspondent says that the Saudi judiciary has so far acquitted the crown prince and accused 11 people, and demanded the death penalty in five of them, but Erdogan says he is determined to continue "efforts to highlight the killing."

The correspondent concludes that these questions are the same questions that Khadija Cengiz poses, and wants to remind them today during a symbolic event to commemorate Khashoggi in front of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, saying, `` Unless his body is restored, Jamal has no grave, but meeting his friends is like a visit to his grave. ''