The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi

The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi

DW (2020)

Film Review

This documentary is based on the Turkish intelligence investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance and apparent murder. It was subsequently authenticated by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Khashoggi*, a dissident journalist, left Saudi Arabia for the US (where he worked for the Washington Post) in September 2017 after running afoul of Saudi authorities for criticizing their human rights violations.

He disappeared on October 2, 2018 after entering the Saudi consulate in Ankara Turkey. He was collecting divorce papers needed to fulfill Turkish legal requirements prior to remarrying. Although his  fiancee Hatice Cengiz waited for him outside the consulate, but he never reappeared. Khashoggi and Cengiz, a Turkish divorcee** and PhD student, first met at an academic conference in May 2018.

On October 8, Turkish authorities began leaking intelligence to the international media that Khashoggi had been killed and dismembered during his visit to the Saudi consulate. This intelligence included surveillance footage on a 15-member Saudi security team. It shows the team arriving in Ankara on October 2, buying 20 large suitcases, visiting the consulate and leaving by plane ten hours later. It also shows two vehicles leaving the consulate a few hours after Khashoggi’s visit, traveling to the Consul’s residence and from there to a car wash. Most importantly it included a surveillance audiotape from the consulate consistent with Khashoggi being injected with a sedative, suffocated with a plastic bag and dismembered with a bone saw.

fter reviewing this evidence, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded in June 2019 that Khashoggi was the victim of a deliberate premeditated extrajudicial assassination. He called for Saudi Arabia to extradite the 15-member security team to Turkey to be tried for Khashoggi’s murder.

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*Jamal Khashoggi was the nephew of the prominent arms Saudi arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi, known for his role in the Iran–Contra scandal. Jamal was also the cousin of the late Dodi Fayed, the lover killed with Princess Diana in the August 1997 Paris car crash.  Jamal Khashoggi Saudi Arabia Journalist Connect Princess Diana Dodi Fayed

**Cengiz has one son by a prior marriage to Turkish movie star Deniz Oral (see Deniz Oral Biography) and Khashoggi three previous marriages and four children (see Hatice Cengiz Biography)

Who Murdered Jamal Khashoggi: the Findings of Turkish Intelligence

Jamal Khashoggi: The Silencing of a Jounalist

Al Jazeera (2019)

Film Review

This documentary is a collation of Turkish intelligence findings in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Istanbul’s Saudi Consulate in October 2018. The evidence consists mainly of an audio recording of the murder (presumably Turkish intelligence had the Saudi Consulate bugged), forensic analysis of the Consulate interior, CCTV footage and interviews with a cab driver and a builder who constructed a massive incinerator outside the Saudi Consul’s home in April 2018. The documentary also features an exclusive interview with Hatice Congiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, who was waiting for him outside the Consulate.

Based on the audio recording, where Khashoggi is heard to say, “Don’t cover my mouth – I have asthma and I can’t breathe,” Turkish Intelligence concludes the Saudi hit team put a plastic bag over his head and choked him. He is heard to struggle for seven minutes before he succumbs.

It would take fifteen days and massive international pressure before Saudi intelligence allowed Turkish police inside the Consulate to conduct a forensic analysis. They discovered the walls had been recently repainted. After removing the new paint, they discovered traces of Khashoggi’s blood and fingerprints belonging to the hit team.

At present, Turkish intelligence believes his body was dismembered inside the Consulate and packed into suitcases. Within hours of the murder, there is CCTV footage of hit team members arriving at the Saudi Consul’s home with the suitcases.

The most gruesome evidence comes from a builder commissioned to build an enormous incinerator in the Saudi Consul’s back garden in April 2018. This coincides with the date Khashoggi began visiting Istanbul to court Hatice Congiz, leading eventually to their engagement.

Khashoggi was visiting the Saudi Consul to obtain copies of his divorce decree. Under Turkish law, all foreigners must provide proof they are single to marry Turkish nationals.