Istanbul: A Saudi journalist extremely critical of the regime in Riyadh, who went missing after visiting his country’s consulate in Istanbul, was ‘tortured, murdered and cut to pieces’, Turkish police claim, reports Daily Mail. Jamal Khashoggi, 59, entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in the Turkish capital to obtain official documents for his upcoming wedding, and ‘never came back out again’.
Turkish police believe Khashoggi was murdered inside the building, which Riyadh fiercely denies, instead claiming the journalist disappeared after leaving the consulate on Tuesday afternoon. Khashoggi, who has been a vocal critic of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies, was brutally tortured before he was murdered, a police source told Middle East Eye. ‘Everything was videotaped to prove the mission had been accomplished and the tape was taken out of the country,’ the source said.