Jamal Khashoggi case: All the latest updates
Source tells Al Jazeera Khashoggi’s body was dissolved in acid in one of the rooms of consul’s Istanbul residence.
Saudi Arabia has admitted Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside its consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul.
Khashoggi – a Saudi writer, US resident and Washington Post columnist – entered the building on October 2 to obtain documentation certifying he had divorced his ex-wife so he could remarry.
After weeks of repeated denials that it had anything to do with his disappearance, the kingdom eventually acknowledged that the murder was premeditated. The whereabouts of his body are still unknown.
{SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS networks}
Here are the latest developments:
Monday, November 12
Trudeau: Canada has heard Turkish recordings on Khashoggi’s killing
Canadian intelligence has listened to Turkish recordings of what happened to Jamal Khashoggi said Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, although Trudeau added that he himself had not listened to them.
“Canada’s intelligence agencies have been working very closely on this issue with Turkish intelligence and Canada has been fully briefed on what Turkey had to share and I had a conversation with Erdogan a couple of weeks ago and here in Paris we had brief exchanges and I thanked him for his strength in responding to the Khashoggi situation,” said Trudeau.
“We continue to be engaged with our allies on the investigation into accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and we are in discussions with our like-minded allies as to the next steps with regard Saudi Arabia,” added Trudeau at a news conference in Paris on Monday.
Khashoggi’s friends, fiancee demand justice at Istanbul memorial
About 200 people gathered in Istanbul to honour the memory of Khashoggi, demanding justice over the killing.
Supporters met on Sunday to talk and watch videos of eulogies for the Washington Post contributor, who was killed on October 2 inside Istanbul’s Saudi consulate, where he went to handle paperwork for his upcoming marriage. His fiancee was among the participants of the memorial.
Turan Kislakci, head of the Turkish-Arab Media Association (TAM), to which Khashoggi belonged, called for justice to be done “so that these barbaric tyrants can never do the same thing again”.
Yemeni human rights activist Tawakkol Karman, who won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her participation in the Arab Spring uprisings, said the killing was reminiscent of crimes committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.
Saudi crown prince meets British special envoy: SPA
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has discussed bilateral relations with British Prime Minister Theresa May’s special envoy, Simon McDonald, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Monday.
McDonald’s talks in Riyadh comes as British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said he will visit Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Monday to press for an end to the war in Yemen and to urge Saudi leaders to cooperate with an investigation into the murder of Khashoggi.
UK calls for end to Yemen war, Khashoggi justice
UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt visits Saudi Arabia to press Saudi leaders to cooperate with an investigation into Khashoggi’s murder.
The visit comes at a time when Riyadh is facing global criticism and potential sanctions over the killing.
Hunt, the first British minister to visit Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi’s murder, will call on the Saudi authorities to do more to deliver justice and accountability for his family.
“The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago. It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear,” he said.
Sunday, November 11
‘I’m suffocating’: Khashoggi’s last words, says Turkish reporter
The head of investigations at the Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper has told Al Jazeera that Jamal Khashoggi’s last words were “I’m suffocating … Take this bag off my head, I’m claustrophobic”, according to an audio recording from inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Khashoggi suffocated to death while a plastic bag covered his head, Nazif Karaman told Al Jazeera.
Karaman said the murder lasted for about seven minutes, according to the recordings.
Read more here.
Saudi officials ‘discussed killing enemies’ a year before Khashoggi murder: report
A report by The New York Times has said that Saudi intelligence officials close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with businessmen in 2017 to discuss manoeuvres to sabotage Iran’s economy and broached the possibility of killing Iranian enemies of the kingdom.
During the meeting, Saudi officials asked the businessmen if they “conducted kinetics” – a term used to refere to assassinations – to kill Qassim Suleimani, the leader of the specialised Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the paper reported
“Their discussions, more than a year before the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, indicate that top Saudi officials have considered assassinations since the beginning of Prince Mohammed’s ascent,” wrote The Times.
Saturday, November 10
Trump and Macron say Saudi must give details on Khashoggi killing – report
US President Donald Trump and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, agreed on Saturday that Saudi Arabia needs to shed full light on the events surroundingKhashoggi’s murder, Reuters news agency reported, citing a French presidency source.
The two leaders also said the issue should not be allowed to cause further destabilisation in the Middle East and that it could create an opportunity to find a political resolution to the war in Yemen, the official said.
Trump and Macron are in Paris to commemorate the end of World War I.
Erdogan: Turkey shared Khashoggi tapes with Saudi, US and others
Turkey has given recordings on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France and Britain, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.
Turkish sources have said previously that authorities have an audio recording purportedly documenting the murder.
Speaking before his departure for France to attend commemorations to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, Erdogan said Saudi Arabia knows the killer of Jamal Khashoggi is among a group of 15 people who arrived in Turkey one day ahead of the October 2 killing.
“We gave the tapes. We gave them to Saudi Arabia, to the United States, Germans, French and British, all of them. They have listened to all the conversations in them. They know,” Erdogan said.
Turkish police ‘end search‘ for Jamal Khashoggi’s body
Turkish police are ending the search for the Khashoggi’s body, but the criminal investigation into the Saudi journalist’s murder will continue, sources told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera has learned on Friday that traces of acid were found at the Saudi consul-general’s residence in Istanbul, where the body was believed to be disposed of with use of chemicals.
The residence is at walking distance from the Saudi consulate, where Khashoggi was allegedly killed by a team of Saudi officers and officials.
Istanbul’s chief prosecutor said on October 31 that Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the consulate and that his body was dismembered, in the first official comments on the case.
Friday, November 9
Norway suspends arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia
Norway announced on Friday that it was suspending new licenses for arms exports to Saudi Arabia following recent developments in the Gulf kingdom and the situation in Yemen.
“We have decided that in the present situation, we will not give new licenses for the export of defence material or multipurpose goods for military use to Saudi Arabia,” Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said in a statement.
While Khashoggi’s murder was not mentioned, the statement said the decision had been taken following “a broad assessment of recent developments in Saudi Arabia and the unclear situation in Yemen”.
The announcement came a week after Norway’s foreign minister summoned the Saudi ambassador to Oslo to protest Khashoggi’s assassination.
Germany said last month that it would halt its arms exports to Saudi Arabia until the killing of Khashoggi was explained.
Khashoggi’s fiancee shocked by reports his body was dissolved
Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, has expressed “shock and sadness” over reports suggesting that his body may have been dissolved with chemicals.
Cengiz said on Twitter late Thursday that Khashoggi’s killers had deprived his loved ones of conducting funeral prayers and burying him in the holy city of Medina as he had wished.
In a message to The Associated Press on Friday, Cengiz said she has not received any information from officials to confirm the reports.
Thursday, November 8
Bin Salman: Khashoggi’s killers would be punished
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a group of American evangelical leaders earlier this month that those responsible for Khashoggi’s killing would be punished.
He also stressed that the crisis must not shift focus away from Iran’s threat to the region and the world, according to the delegation’s organiser.
In an article posted on Axios, a news website, Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 10 news quotes Joel Rosenberg as saying bin Salman accused his “enemies” of exploiting Khashoggi’s murder, which he called a “heinous act”.
Axios: MBS met US evangelicals, said Khashoggi’s killers would be punished
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a group of American evangelical leaders on November 1 that those responsible for Khashoggi’s killing would be punished but stressed that the crisis must not shift focus away from Iran’s threat to the region and the world, according to the delegation’s organiser.
In an article posted on Axios, a news website, Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 10 news quotes Joel Rosenberg as saying bin Salman accused his “enemies” of exploiting Khashoggi’s murder, which he called a “heinous act”.
The meeting, which lasted some two hours, was scheduled before the Khashoggi crisis erupted.
Traces of acid, chemicals found in Saudi consul’s home
A source in the Turkish attorney general’s office told Al Jazeera that the investigative team found traces of hydrofluoric acid and other chemicals inside a well at the Saudi consul general’s home in Istanbul.
The source said the killers dissolved the journalist’s dismembered body in acid in one of the rooms at Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibi’s residence.
Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from Istanbul, said the residence was searched by Turkish investigators two weeks after the killing.
“It would appear, according to the source that during that two week period, acid was used to dispose of the dismembered body of Jamal Khashoggi.”
Wednesday, November 7
Israeli spyware technology may have been used to track down, kill Khashoggi: Snowden
Software made by Israeli-based cybersecurity firm NSO Group Technologies may have been used to track down Khashoggi, fugitive US whistle-blower Edward Snowden told an Israeli audience via video conference.
Snowden said the phone of one of Khashoggi’s friends, Omar Abdulaziz – who lives in exile in Canada – had been infected with NSO’s Pegasus spyware. The whistle-blower, who now lives in Russia, said the software allowed Saudis to collect information about Khashoggi through Abdulaziz.
“The Saudis, of course, knew that Khashoggi was going to go to the consulate, as he got an appointment. But how did they know his intention and plans?”
“[NSO Group] is the worst of the worst in selling these burglary tools, that are being actively used to violate the human rights of dissidents, opposition figures, activists, to some pretty bad players,” Snowden said, “but they are not alone.”
Donald Trump: ‘Much stronger opinion next week’
US President Donald Trump has said he will have a “much stronger opinion” on the killing of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi “over the next week”.
Trump said he is working with the US Congress, Turkey and Saudi Arabia on solving the October 2 killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
“I am forming a very strong opinion,” the US president said during a press conference at the White House.
Saudi king issues pardons, unveils projects on domestic tour
Saudi Arabia’s king has begun a domestic tour with a first stop in the conservative heartland of Qassim province, where he pardoned prisoners serving time on finance charges and announced 16bn riyals – about $4.27bn – in new projects.
This is King Salman’s first such tour since he ascended to the throne in 2015 and comes as the kingdom faces international pressure following the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last month.
The state-run news agency reported on Wednesday that the government would pay debts of up to 1m riyals, or $267,000, on behalf of each of the pardoned prisoners.
Tuesday, November 6
CIA chief has seen all evidence in relation to Khashoggi murder – source
A Turkish security source has told Al Jazeera that CIA Director Gina Haspel has seen all the evidence related to Khashoggi’s killing.
The evidence proves the operation was carried out on orders from the highest level of leadership in Saudi Arabia, the source added.
Haspel was in Turkey last week to review evidence before briefing US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC.
Turkish sources also said that Saudi Arabia would pay “blood money” or compensation to Khashoggi’s family and his fiancee.
Saudis tampered with CCTV cameras after Khashoggi murder: report
Turkish media have reported that staff at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul tried to dismantle security cameras to help cover up the murder of Khashoggi.
The pro-government Sabah newspaper reported that the Saudis tried to rip out the camera inside the consulate on October 2, the day Khashoggi was murdered.
They also tried to tamper with cameras at the police security booth outside the building.
According to the report, at 1am on October 6, a consulate member staff went into the police security post outside the Saudi consulate to access the video system.
Sabah reported that the staff member put a digital lock code into the system, which did not dismantle any cameras but rather was intended to prevent access to any videos showing movement at the entrance, including Khashoggi’s arrival at the consulate.
Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons reporting from Istanbul said that their attempt was, in any case, irrelevant because the police had already deciphered the coding and accessed the system, retrieving a copy of the video well ahead of the attempt of tampering.
“All of this demonstrates, according to Turkish officials, in terms of the … whole set of procedures, that there was an effort by the Saudi Arabian consulate to once again tamper with evidence,” Simmons said.
“This follows a pattern of leaks which demonstrate beyond any doubt, according to the Turks, that the Saudis weren’t out to investigate a murder, they were out to cover it up.”
Monday, November 5
Khashoggi’s sons appeal for return of his body
The sons of the slain Saudi journalist issued an appeal for the return of their father’s body and said they wanted to return to Saudi Arabia to bury him.
In an interview with CNN, Salah and Abdullah Khashoggi said without their father’s body, their family is unable to grieve and deal with the emotional burden of their father’s death.
“It’s not a normal situation, it’s not a normal death at all. All what we want right now is to bury him in Al-Baqi [cemetery] in Medina [Saudi Arabia] with the rest of his family,” Salah Khashoggi said.
“I talked about that with the Saudi authorities and I just hope that it happens soon.”
Salah Khashoggi on October 24 met the crown prince and King Salman in Riyadh to receive condolences along with other Khashoggi family members. Salah departed for Washington a day later, and his CNN interview was his first public comment since then.
He said King Salman assured him those involved in Khashoggi’s murder would be brought to justice.
“We just need to make sure that he rests in peace,” Salah Khashoggi said of his father. “Until now, I still can’t believe that he’s dead. It’s not sinking in with me emotionally,” he said, adding there had been a lot of “misinformation” about the circumstances of the death.
Salah said accusations that his father was a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhoodorganisation were not true.
Asked how Khashoggi should be remembered, Salah replied, “As a moderate man who has common values with everyone … a man who loved his country, who believed so much in it and its potential.”
“Jamal was never a dissident. He believed in the monarchy, that it is the thing that is keeping the country together. And he believed in the transformation that it is going through.”
Saudi human rights record in UN spotlight
Countries gathered at the UN in Geneva to review Saudi Arabia’s rights record as it faces a torrent of international condemnation over Khashoggi’s murder.
Monday’s so-called Universal Periodic Review – which all 193 UN member states must undergo every four years – is likely to also focus on Saudi Arabia’s role in Yemen’s brutal civil war. Washington, which has long backed the Saudi-led coalition, called last week for an end to air attacks in the country.
The Saudi delegation in Geneva will be headed by Bandar Al Aiban, who serves as the head of the country’s Human Rights Commission.
The delegation will present a report over the country’s efforts to live up to its international human rights obligations and will respond to questions and comments from countries around the world on its record.
Activists are urging countries not to hold back.
“UN member states must end their deafening silence on Saudi Arabia and do their duty of scrutinising the cruelty in the kingdom in order to prevent further outrageous human rights violations in the country and in Yemen,” Samah Hadid, Amnesty International’s Middle East director of campaigns, said in a statement.
“The Saudi government’s long-standing repression of critics, exemplified by the extrajudicial execution of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month, has until recently been wilfully ignored by UN member states.”
A number of countries have already submitted lists of detailed questions for the review, including direct questions from Britain, Austria and Switzerland on the Khashoggi case.
Sweden, meanwhile, is planning to ask: “What measures will be taken to improve the respect for the freedom of expression and the safety of journalists in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?”
![The scene of Israeli air attack in Khan Younis. Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in the besieged enclave in a clandestine raid targeting a Hamas commander. [Suhaib Salem/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2018/11/12/6f0c2db7035c414d81aba8913ae84a5d_8.jpg)
![Among those reported killed in the attack was Nour Baraka, a prominent commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. [Suhaib Salem/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2018/11/12/7ddaacd22c0243c2a6cc63cdff4df11d_8.jpg)
![Since 2008, Israel has launched three major assaults on Gaza that have heavily damaged the Strip's infrastructure and sources of livelihood. And recent months of unrest have raised fears of a fourth. [Suhaib Salem/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2018/11/12/32a630787903463d99c2585a99bada00_8.jpg)
![Witnesses said during the chase Israeli aircraft fired more than 40 missiles killing at least four other people. [Suhaib Salem/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2018/11/12/a95ab532e1d147799adf9732890487a0_8.jpg)
![Palestinians stand on the ruins of a building destroyed in an Israeli air attack in Khan Younis. [Suhaib Salem/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2018/11/12/3c6fe98b51804b6d82345076eac9c30e_8.jpg)
![Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short his visit to France to deal with the crisis. [Suhaib Salem/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2018/11/12/6567df5991af46c6818dbc803434435a_8.jpg)
![An Israeli soldier was killed in an exchange of fire during the operation, the army said. [Suhaib Salem/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2018/11/12/6146043d04ed4157b166d0bb56ca9465_8.jpg)
![Bodies of Palestinians who were killed on Sunday were brought to a hospital in Khan Younis. [Abed Zagout/Anadolu Agency]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2018/11/12/0f70e851707f4284a9c937b747230c26_8.jpg)
