MEMBERS of a team from Saudi Arabia sent to help investigate the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi worked instead to remove evidence, a senior Turkish official has said.
The official confirmed a report in Turkey’s Sabah newspaper that an 11-member team of Saudi investigators arrived in Turkey nine days after Khashoggi was killed to take part in a joint Turkish-Saudi probe.
But it included experts on chemistry and toxicology who were reportedly sent to Istanbul to obfuscate the evidence.
The official said Turkey believes that two members of the team “came to Turkey for the sole purpose of covering up evidence” before Turkish police were allowed to search the Saudi Consulate.
Khashoggi was killed there on October 2 after he entered to collect a document he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee.
The official said the fact that a clean-up team was dispatched suggests that Khashoggi’s killing “was within the knowledge of top Saudi officials”.
The unnamed official also confirmed the Sabah report which identified the two experts as Ahmed Abdulaziz Al-Janobi and Khaled Yahya al-Zahrani.
“We believe that the two individuals came to Turkey for the sole purpose of covering up evidence of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder before the Turkish police were allowed to search the premises,” he said.
The information was the latest in a series of leaks from Turkish officials apparently aimed at keeping up the pressure on Saudi Arabia and ensuring that the killing is not covered up.
Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, who is leading the investigation, said last week that Khashoggi, who lived in exile in the US, had been strangled immediately after he entered the consulate on an appointment made after an earlier visit.
He said it was part of a premeditated killing and that the journlaist’s body was dismembered before being removed.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an op-ed in the Washington Post last week that the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest level of the Saudi government and added that the international community had the responsibility to “reveal the puppet masters” behind the death.
Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 suspects who have been detained in Saudi Arabia, so they can be put on trial in Turkey.
They include 15 members of an alleged Saudi “hit squad” that Turkey says was sent to Istanbul to kill the Washington Post columnist who had written critically of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Saudi Arabia acknowledged last month that Turkish evidence indicates that Khashoggi’s killing at the consulate was premeditated, shifting its explanation in an apparent effort to ease international outrage over the death.
On Saturday, the Sabah newspaper, which is close to the Turkish government, said Khashoggi’s body, which still has not been found, was dismembered and removed from the Saudi Consulate in five suitcases.
A senior official from Turkey’s ruling party, who is a friend of Khashoggi’s, has suggested his body may have been dissolved in acid or other chemicals.
Turkey’s vice-president, Fuat Oktay, told the state-run Anadolu news agency that such reports need to be investigated.
Meanwhile, two of Khashoggi’s sons appealed for his remains to be returned so that he may be buried in Saudi Arabia.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, the sons also said they hoped he did not suffer when he was killed.
“All what we want right now is to bury him in Al-Baqi (cemetery) in Medina 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,” he said.
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