{"id":17235,"date":"2018-10-03T19:25:50","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T19:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17235"},"modified":"2018-10-03T19:25:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T19:25:50","slug":"conflicting-saudi-turkish-claims-on-jamal-khashoggi-whereabouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17235","title":{"rendered":"Conflicting Saudi, Turkish claims on Jamal Khashoggi whereabouts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Saudi and Turkish officials have made conflicting statements on the whereabouts of a prominent journalist who has reportedly gone missing\u00a0while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>, a\u00a0Saudi dissident critical of the country’s crown prince,<\/span>\u00a0entered the consulate’s premises at around 1pm (10:00 GMT) on Tuesday in what seemed to be a routine visit to sort out paperwork, before disappearing.<\/p>\n

Turkey’s presidential spokesperson said on Wednesday that\u00a0<\/span>Khashoggi remains inside the Saudi consulate, a day after his fiancee reported he had failed to emerge from a meeting in the mission.<\/p>\n

“According to information we have, this individual who is a Saudi national is still at the consulate as of now,”\u00a0Ibrahim Kalin\u00a0<\/span>said.<\/p>\n

He also said that Turkish authorities were in contact with Saudi officials and he hoped the situation would be resolved.<\/p>\n

In contrast, a Saudi official quoted by Reuters news agency said the journalist was “not in the consulate nor in Saudi custody”.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Mr Khashoggi visited the consulate to request paperwork related to his marital status and exited shortly thereafter,” the official said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Khashoggi,\u00a0who has been living in self-exile in the United States, is\u00a0a prominent columnist for the Washington Post. He has long criticised the Saudi government’s reform programme under the auspices of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fiancee calls police<\/h2>\n

His fiancee – who requested anonymity – told<\/a> the Post she accompanied him but waited outside and called the police when Khashoggi did not emerge after the consulate closed.<\/p>\n

Khashoggi, who once acted as an adviser to the Saudi royal family, fled Saudi Arabia<\/a> in September of last year amid a crackdown on the kingdom’s intellectuals and journalists.<\/p>\n

He told Al Jazeera’s UpFront in March there was no room left for debate in Saudi Arabia, with citizens rounded up and jailed for questioning the government\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

“As we speak today, there [are] Saudi intellectuals and journalists jailed.<\/p>\n

“Now, nobody will dare to speak and criticise the reforms [initiated by the crown prince],” he said, adding “it would be much better for him to allow a breathing space for critics, for Saudi intellectuals, Saudi writers, Saudi media to debate”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi and Turkish officials have made conflicting statements on the whereabouts of a prominent journalist who has reportedly gone missing\u00a0while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Jamal Khashoggi, a\u00a0Saudi dissident critical of the country’s crown prince,\u00a0entered the consulate’s premises at around 1pm (10:00 GMT) on Tuesday in what seemed to be a routine visit to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}