FRIED MASON
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WaPo Columnist Jamal Khashoggi killed by Saudis in Turkey; Senators Mull Magnitsky Sanctions
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just saw this on the news. Unfukking real
Edrogan is going in. Turkey have evidence the murder was planned and not because of a fistfight. 
Saudi hit squad was scouting forest spots in Turkey
Edrogan throwing MbS under the bus.
This was a political killing he said.
Saudi hit squad was scouting forest spots in Turkey
Edrogan throwing MbS under the bus.
This was a political killing he said.
Turkish president says murder of Jamal Khashoggi was ‘planned,’ calls for extradition of Saudi suspects
By Kareem Fahim
October 23, 2018 at 7:43 AM
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave his account Oct. 23 of the killing of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. (Joyce Lee /The Washington Post)
ISTANBUL —Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a “planned” and “brutal” murder and called on Saudi Arabia to extradite 18 suspects to Turkey to face justice for the crime.
Erdogan’s highly anticipated comments, during a speech to his ruling party in Ankara, the Turkish capital, contradicted Saudi accounts that Khashoggi was killed when an argument inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul escalated into a fistfight. The Turkish leader did not directly accuse the Saudi leadership of involvement in the killing but strongly indicated that the Saudi investigation, which has resulted in the arrests of 18 people so far, has not yet reached high enough into the kingdom’s ruling circles.
“It will not satisfy the public by just pinning this kind of matter on a few security and intelligence officers,” he said. “Covering up this kind of savagery will hurt the conscience of all humanity.”
“Saudi Arabia took an important step by accepting the murder. After this, we expect them to reveal those responsible for this matter. We have information that the murder is not instant, but planned,” he said.
While Erdogan did not address the most explosive allegations that have surfaced during the investigation — notably that Khashoggi was dismembered after he was killed -- the president provided the most detailed timeline yet of the days and hours leading up the murder on Oct. 2. He said a team of Saudi agents who were dispatched to Istanbul had carefully prepared for Khashoggi’ s death.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday divulged details of Turkey’s investigation into the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Erdogan, right, shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, before their meeting in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, in July 2017. (STF/Presidency Press Service/Pool Photo via AP)
The Saudi team that plotted the murder was first alerted, Erdogan said, after Khashoggi visited the consulate on Friday, Sept. 28.
“Planning and the work of a road map starts here,” the president said. Beginning three days later, on Oct. 1, teams of Saudi agents begin arriving in Istanbul, with one team visiting wooded areas in and around Istanbul “for reconnaissance,” Erdogan said, referring to areas that Turkish police later focused on as they searched for Khashoggi’s body.
After another team arrives at the Istanbul consulate, “the hard disk on the consulate camera is removed,” he added. The Saudi team consisted of “intelligence, security and forensic workers,” Erdogan said.
Khashoggi entered the mission at around 1:14 p.m. on Oct. 2. When he had not emerged a few hours later, his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting for him outside, alerted authorities, and an investigation was started, Erdogan said. Camera footage showed that Khashoggi had never left, he added.
Erdogan highlighted attempts by the Saudis to obstruct or cover up the killing, including a ruse involving a Saudi agent who was dressed like Khashoggi and captured on camera exiting the consulate.
“Why did 15 people gather in Istanbul the day of the murder? Who did these people receive orders from?” he asked. “Why was the consulate opened not immediately but days later for investigation? When the murder was obvious, why were inconsistent explanations given?”
“Why is the corpse still not found?”
Security personnel guard Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, on Monday. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called the son of Jamal Khashoggi, the kingdom announced early Monday, to express condolences for the death of the journalist killed at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul by officials that allegedly included a member of the royal's entourage. (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Tuesday that the kingdom was committed to a “comprehensive investigation” into the journalist’s death and has dispatched a team to Turkey.
Speaking in Indonesia on Tuesday, Jubeir said the Saudi investigators had “uncovered evidence of a murder.” He also vowed to put mechanisms in place that would prevent similar incidents in future, without expanding upon what those would be.
Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Post who had written columns critical of the Saudi leadership over the last year, went to the consulate on the afternoon of Oct. 2 to obtain documents that would allow him to remarry.
His death has cast a harsh light on the rule of the Saudi Arabia’s young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who has eased social restrictions at home while pursuing an unrelenting crackdown on rivals and critics, imprisoning hundreds. Mohammed has also tried to lure exiled dissidents such as Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia, back to Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi’s friends and other exiles have said.
Related: [CIA director flies to Turkey amid controversy over Jamal Khashoggi killing]
In Riyadh on Tuesday, Saudi authorities opened a landmark investment conference intended to signal afresh that the kingdom is open for business.
But while the guest list for last year’s conference read like a who’s who of the global business elite, the run-up to Tuesday’s event has been marred by pullouts from a stream of Western investors and politicians, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
Tuesday’s audience is expected to be dominated instead by representatives Middle Eastern, Asian and Russian companies, suggesting that the Western boycott may have a limited impact on Saudi economic prospects.
The Khashoggi case has also embarrassed the Trump administration, which regards the crown prince as one of its closest Arab allies and Saudi Arabia as a cornerstone of a U.S. strategy to counter Iran. On Monday, CIA Director Gina Haspel headed to Turkey, where she is expected to assess the strength of the evidence that Turkish officials have been drip-feeding the media for weeks.
A stream of Turkish video leaks that surfaced Monday appeared to depict the Saudis trying to cover their tracks after Khashoggi’s death, including images said to be of men at the consulate burning documents and a body double wearing Khashoggi’s clothes, to make it appear the journalist had walked out of the consulate as the Saudis claimed.
The leaks also seemed intended to whip up a sense of anticipation ahead of the speech by Erdogan, who has chided the Saudis in recent weeks for not cooperating with the Turkish investigation but stopped short of blaming the Saudi government for Khashoggi’s death.
On Sunday, in a preview of his speech, Erdogan said he would explain the episode “in a very different way,” the semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported.
“The incident will be revealed entirely,” he said.
Louisa Loveluck in Beirut contributed to this report.
Erdogan Seizes on Saudi Murder as Chance to Upend Middle East
By
Benjamin Harvey
October 22, 2018, 11:02 AM EDTUpdated on October 23, 2018, 4:10 AM EDT
- Turkish leader vows to reveal all about Khashoggi case Tuesday
- This scandal is a gift from God for Erdogan, diplomat says
Bloomberg’s Jason Kelly reports on the fallout from the death of Jamal Khashoggi.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to turn a horrific murder in Istanbul into a catalyst for changing the balance of power in Saudi Arabia and regaining influence across the Middle East.
Having remade the region’s largest democracy in his own image, Erdogan is taking aim at rival Saudi Arabia’s leadership amid international outrage over the death of insider-turned critic Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. Erdogan has vowed to reveal what happened to Khashoggi “in all its nakedness” on Tuesday, just as the Saudis kick off a major investment forum in Riyadh. Directly refuting the Saudi account of the slaying could dramatically raise the stakes for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Oct. 23.
Source: Getty Images
Turkey claims to have evidence the Washington Post columnist was tortured and dismembered by Saudi assassins who flew in on private jets. Strategic media leaks by anonymous officials suggest Erdogan possesses audio recordings that he’s using to extract concessions from the deep-pocketed Saudis and convince the West the kingdom is far from a reliable partner.
This is “a gift from God” for Erdogan, a senior western diplomat in Turkey said, echoing the views of several others who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Trump, MBS
At stake is not just the fraught Saudi-Turkey relationship, or ties between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., its key western ally. It could raise fresh questions about Prince Mohammed, 33, who’s projected a carefully crafted image as a modernizer abroad while brutally consolidating power in Riyadh. His supporters in Saudi Arabia say he’s firmly in control.
Read more: Suddenly Toxic, Saudi Prince Is Shunned by Investors He Courted
One senior official in Erdogan’s government said Turkey has never believed the hype about the prince, known as MBS. The Turks have privately warned that Washington risks public embarrassment if it is seen under President Donald Trump to be attempting to help whitewash the circumstances around Khashoggi’s death.
Having first insisted that Khashoggi, 59, left the consulate unharmed on Oct. 2 after requesting a document for his upcoming marriage, it took 18 days and a growing chorus of condemnation for Saudi officials to admit he’d died inside, in what they said was a botched interrogation that turned into in a physical altercation.
Turkish ruling party spokesman Omer Celik on Monday dismissed the Saudi narrative, saying the murder was “well-planned." Still, he rejected the notion the party was “bargaining” with the Saudis over the case.
Erdogan is scheduled to speak about the killing at 11:45 a.m. local time on Tuesday, during his weekly address to his party’s lawmakers at parliament.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia have traditionally served as the West’s chosen power brokers in the Middle East, but Erdogan’s recent authoritarian turn -- including a crackdown on the media -- and cooperation with Russia in Syria have strained relations with fellow NATO members.
Turkey has been labeled the world’s “worst jailer” of journalists the past two years by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The organization says 73 journalists were behind bars in Turkey as of December 2017, according to its latest annual report, and “fresh arrests take place regularly.”
Now, however, Erdogan can point to the Khashoggi tragedy as an example of how his democracy, however flawed, is better than any Saudi alternative.
‘Internal Dynamics’
“Turkey has played its hand well, largely because of Saudi incompetence," said Aaron Stein, a senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. “But the internal dynamics in Saudi seem beyond Turkey’s reach; a lot depends on how the U.S. moves."
Turkey’s aware of that, too, and is hoping its campaign will eventually force Trump to call King Salman bin Abdulaziz, 82, and demand he pick a new heir, according to the Turkish official. It’s a long shot, but Turkey’s got fresh support in the U.S., in this case at least, including from Trump backers like Senator Lindsey Graham.
MBS has “got to go," Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, told Fox News. “Saudi Arabia, if you’re listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose," he said. “But MBS has tainted your country and tainted yourself."
There are signs Trump is wavering in his support for the crown prince, who’s made himself a linchpin of the White House’s anti-Iran strategy and curried favor with Washington by pledging to expand already-massive purchases of U.S. arms. Trump said Monday that he’s “not satisfied” with the Saudi narrative of events, but separately told USA Today that he thought it was a “plot gone awry.”
Read more: Saudi Arabia’s Hurdles Pulling Off Post-Oil Makeover: QuickTake
The hostility between Erdogan and elements of the ruling family in Riyadh dates back to the Arab revolts that began to convulse the region in late 2010. Erdogan had assumed the so-called Arab Spring would lead to the sprouting of like-minded governments across the region as oppressed Islamists swept to power in a democratic wave.
But those dreams were dashed in 2013, when the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi, Egypt’s first elected president, was overthrown by General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi after a year. The region’s monarchies and dictatorships, which see popular Muslim movements as existential threats, cheered.
‘A Lot of Enemies’
“Erdogan put all of his money behind the Brotherhood during the Arab uprisings and he’s lost everything," said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But he gained a lot of enemies: MBS is one of them."
Turkey’s impassioned backing of Mursi and other Brotherhood-inspired movements created a kind of regional anti-Erdogan bloc led by the Saudis, El-Sisi’s Egypt and the U.A.E.’s Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, or MBZ. Ironically, given Erdogan’s intolerance of criticism, he turned the nation into a leading safe haven for Islamist dissidents, many of whom are considered terrorists at home.
Khashoggi’s murder was in a broader sense an attack on Turkey’s policy of harboring critics of other Arab regimes, according to Cagaptay.
“Erdogan has the ability to embarrass both MBS and Trump, but he’s saving it for the end,” he said. “This is a chance for him to undermine the anti-Erdogan, anti-Brotherhood alliance of MBS, MBZ and Sisi, because MBS has become the weakest link.”
— With assistance by Donna Abu-Nasr
NaijaProdigy Redux
Veteran
Erdogan unleashing the flutes
ZoeGod
I’m from Brooklyn a place where stars are born.
Having Turkey and Iran united and your adversaries was never going to end well for Saudi Arabia.
why would they have the bodyparts in the garden???