page_title: Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi
section_title: Disappearance
hierarchical_section_title: Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi / Disappearance
caption_attribution_description: English: Saudi Arabian activist Ghanem al-Dosari at a protest outside the Natural History Museum in London after the disappearance of Jamal Kashoggi. The Saudi embassy was holding a Saudi National Day celebration at the museum.
context_page_description: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi—a Saudi dissident, journalist for The Washington Post, former general manager and editor-in-chief of the Al-Arab News Channel—occurred on 2 October 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, and was perpetrated by agents of the Saudi government. Lured to the consulate building on the pretext of providing him papers for his upcoming wedding, Khashoggi was ambushed, suffocated, and dismembered by a 15-member squad of Saudi assassins. Khashoggi's final moments are captured in audio recordings, transcripts of which were subsequently made public. The Turkish investigation concluded that Khashoggi had been strangled as soon as he entered the consulate building, and that his body was dismembered and disposed of. Turkish investigators, as well as investigations by the New York Times, concluded that some of the 15 members of the Saudi hit team were closely connected to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and that the team had traveled to Istanbul specifically to commit the murder.
  The Saudi government engaged in an extensive effort to cover-up the killing, including destroying evidence.
context_section_description: Over the year 2017, the House of Saud appealed to Khashoggi to return to Riyadh and resume his services as a media advisor to the royal court. But he declined in fear that it was a ruse and that upon returning he would be imprisoned or worse. Khashoggi met with crown prince Mohammed's brother Prince Khalid at the Saudi embassy in Washington, in "early 2018 or late 2017." In September 2018 Khashoggi visited the Washington embassy again, to retrieve paperwork for his pending marriage to his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. He tried to complete everything in the U.S. but was instead lured to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey, where his fiancée lived.
  Khashoggi's first visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was on 28 September 2018 –  where he showed up unannounced. Having divorced his wife, who had remained in Saudi Arabia, he went to the consulate to obtain a document certifying that he was no longer married so he could marry his Turkish fiancée. Before that visit he "sought assurances about his safety from friends in the US" and instructed his fiancée to contact Turkish authorities if he failed to emerge. He received a warm welcome from officials, and was told to return to the consulate on 2 October. "He was very pleased with their nice treatment and hospitality", she later said. On 29 September Khashoggi traveled to London and spoke at a conference. On 1 October Khashoggi returned to Istanbul, and he told a friend that he was worried about being kidnapped and sent back to KSA.
  Meanwhile, at around 16:30, a three-person Saudi team arrived in Istanbul on a scheduled flight, checked in to their hotels then visited the consulate, according to President Erdogan. Another group of officials from the consulate traveled to a forest in Istanbul's outskirts and the nearby city of Yalova on a "reconnaissance" trip. Erdogan said a "road map" to kill Khashoggi was devised in Saudi Arabia during this time. In the night of 2 October, a 15-member group arrived from Riyadh on two private Gulfstream jets.
  On 2 October 2018 CCTV showed the suspected agents entering the consulate around noon. Khashoggi arrived about an hour later, accompanied by his fiancée Cengiz, whom he entrusted with two cell phones while she waited outside for him. He entered the consulate, through main entrance, at around 1 pm. As he had not come out by 4 pm, even though the working hours of the consulate were until 3:30 pm, Cengiz contacted the authorities, phoning Khashoggi's friend, Yasin Aktay, an adviser to President Erdogan, reported him missing and the police then started an investigation.
  The Saudi government said that he had left the consulate via a back entrance. The Turkish government first said that he was still inside, and his fiancée and friends said that he was missing.
  Turkish authorities have claimed that security camera footage of the day of the incident was removed from the consulate and that Turkish consulate staff were abruptly told to take a holiday on the day Khashoggi disappeared while inside the building. Turkish police investigators told the media that the recordings from the security cameras did not show any evidence of Khashoggi leaving the consulate. A security camera was located outside the consulate's front which showed him entering but not leaving, while another camera installed at a preschool opposite the rear entrance of the consulate also did not show him leaving.
  The disappearance presented Turkish officials with a sharp diplomatic challenge. Jamal Elshayyal reported Turkish authorities were trying to walk a fine line so as not to damage the Turkish-Saudi relationship: "There is an attempt by the Turkish government to try to find a way out of this whereby there isn't a full collapse of diplomatic relations, at least a temporary freeze between Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Because, if indeed, Turkish authorities can prove unequivocally that Saudi agents essentially murdered a journalist inside the consulate in Istanbul, it would require some sort of strong reaction." Analysts have suggested that Khashoggi may have been considered espe
caption: Saudi Arabian activist Ghanem al-Dosari at a protest outside the Natural History Museum, London, 11 October 2018, after the disappearance of Jamal Kashoggi. The Saudi embassy was holding a Saudi National Day celebration at the museum.
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