The disappearance of a prominent Saudi journalist in Turkey last week shocked the world.
Jamal Khashoggi is a Washington Post journalist and Saudi royal family adviser turned exiled critic.
He mysteriously vanished on October 2nd, 2018.
The last place he was seen was at the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
He entered, but reportedly never left.
Over a week later, little is still known about Khashoggi’s whereabouts.
Turkish officials now fear the worst.
They worry that the Saudis murdered the journalist in cold blood when he entered its diplomatic station.
But why would Saudi Arabia even want him dead?
Jamal Khashoggi wasn’t always a critic of the Saudi regime.
In fact, he had a history of working very closely with the Saudi government.
He even served as an adviser to senior Saudi officials for a time.
He graduated from the Indiana State University in 1982, before launching his career as a journalist.
He went on to work for various Saudi publications and news channels.
He made a name for himself for his foreign reporting from places like Algeria, Kuwait, and Afghanistan during the soviet rule.
He even interviewed Saudi national Osama Bin Laden on multiple occasions, before Bin Laden went on to become the leader of Al Qaeda.
His coverage made him one of Saudi Arabia’s leading journalists.
He went on to hold several editor positions at leading Saudi newspapers, and became the general manager of Al Arab News channel.
Despite his close relationship with the Saudi royal family, his vocal support for reforms often got him in trouble.
He was even forced out of several newsroom leadership positions on several occasions.
He advocated for equal rights for women, criticized the kingdom’s crackdown on human rights activists, and he also and called for greater press freedoms.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia ranked 169th out of 180 on Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index.
[Adam Coogle] Jamal was always what you might think of as an institutional reformist.
He always supported reform. He always supported liberalization.
[Judah Robinson] That was especially true after the new crown prince, Mohammad Bin Salman, became the de factor leader.
Khashoggi fled Saudi Arabia in September, 2017 and went into self-imposed exile in the United States.
[Adam Coogle] He really read the tea leaves well on that because right after he fled Saudi Arabia and [Mohammed Bin Salman]
embarked on a massive arrest campaign of any sort of independent voices.
Prominent clerics, dissidents, economists, and others were really rounded up en masse.
And Jamal probably would have been one of them.
[Judah Robinson] Khashoggi became even more outspoken in his exile.
He became a journalist for The Washington Post.
He openly criticized the Saudi-led Coalitions’ military campaign in Yemen, as well as Mohammed Bin Salman’s leadership.
But if Khashoggi was in exile and feared the Saudi government, what was he doing in its Consulate in Istanbul?
Just note: we want to point out that some of the following information might be disturbing to some of our viewers.
Jamal Khashoggi entered the consulate on October 2nd, to pick up official divorce documents.
Documents he needed to be able to marry his Turkish fiance.
She was waiting for him outside of the entrance of the Saudi compound.
She was the only witness to see him enter.
She waited for him for 11 hours -- but says he never emerged.
Days later -- Turkish officials leaked information to various news organizations
that the investigators believed Kashoggi was murdered by a team of 15 Saudi agents.
The widely reported allegation is that his body was dismembered inside of the consulate.
The Turkish government has not publicly made this claim yet, nor it has released evidence to back up the reports of his alleged murder.
[Adam Coogle] Saudi Arabia and Turkey have had some bumps in their relationship over the last few years.
So, you know, things haven't been great between the two countries but they I don't think that things between them have have descended into sort of
open diplomatic warfare if you will. And I think, unfortunately, this does have the potential to possibly lead there.
[Judah Robinson] Saudi Arabia denies the reports of his murder.
Mohammed Bin Salman even responded to the accusations himself exclusively to Bloomberg news on October, 5th.
Saudi officials claim that the journalist exited using another entrance of the building.
But when asked to provide proof of this claim, like security footage, they say the cameras weren't working at the time.
[Adam Coogle] I have a hard time believing that.
If they really want to prove that Jamal left the embassy they should produce
whatever evidence that they have that shows that like just saying it is not enough.
[Judah Robinson] The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi has created international pressure
on the kingdom to produce evidence of what happened to the journalist.
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have been allied since the end of World War II --
with deep military and economic links, despite obvious differences in approaches to human rights.
Even one of Mohammed Bin Salman’s closest allies, President Donald Trump, weighed in:
[U.S. President Donald Trump] We do not like seeing what's going on. Now, as you know, they're saying 'we had nothing to do with it.'
But, so far, everyone is saying they had nothing to do with it.
And, it's inside of Turkey. And, the Turkish government is working very strongly so far. So, we will see what happens.
[Judah Robinson] It was later confirmed that National Security advisor John Bolton and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner
spoke directly to Mohammed bin Salman on this issue.
It’s important to note here that Kushner and the crown prince have had a particularly close relationship.
As international pressure mounts, Saudi Arabia said on the 9th, that it will allow Turkish investigators
to search the consulate over a week after Khashoggi went missing.
But some say this won’t be enough to solve the case of his disappearance.
[Adam Coogle] And I think, you know, barring any new revelation
that's just going to always point to some sort of Saudi role in Jamal’s disappearance.
[Judah Robinson] The United States has notoriously turned a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s actions over recent decades.
But in an era of America First - it’s even less likely that the U.S. or the international community will respond.
[U.S. President Donald Trump] We’re going to have to see what happens.
I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s being poured into our country on I know they’re talking about different kinds of sanctions,
but they’re spending $110 billion on military equipment and on things that create jobs, like jobs and others for this country.