President of Turkey said today the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a “planned” and “brutal” murder. From The Washington Post:
“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 so far resulted in the arrests of 18 people, had not yet reached high enough into the kingdom’s ruling circles.”
The Turkish president called on Saudi Arabia to extradite those 18 suspects to face justice. He also laid out a very detailed plot for the murder. From The Post:
“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.”
The remains have yet to be found. From The New York Times:
“It is clear that this savage murder did not happen at the drop of a dime but was a planned affair,” Mr. Erdogan said, challenging the official Saudi account that the journalist was accidentally killed in a melee inside the consulate.”
Erdogan has been the driving force behind the investigation and the speech today made it clear he has no intention of dropping it.
Jamal Khashoggi was a victim of a "ferocious" pre-planned murder, Turkey's President Erdogan said in a highly anticipated speech, which denied Saudi Arabia's account https://t.co/jEmenqPKWM pic.twitter.com/o5EiOEZhVN
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 23, 2018
Turkish officials have been leaking information for days on the story. The Wall Street Journal reports on their possible motivation:
“Turkish authorities decided to leak evidence gradually in the days after the killing of a dissident journalist as part of an effort to blunt the international standing of rival Saudi Arabia, Turkish officials said.
“Turkish investigators quickly determined Jamal Khashoggi had been killed by Saudi operatives but authorities didn’t publicly announce what they knew because they were worried about provoking a confrontation with the rich and powerful kingdom. But as Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance gained global attention and Saudi Arabia denied any knowledge of it, Turkish officials saw a chance to counter Riyadh’s narrative.
“We turned on the drip-drip,” a Turkish official said.”