Alwaght- The Turkish prosecutor says the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled immediately after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The chief Istanbul Prosecutor Irfan Fidan added that the murdered journalist’s body was also “dismembered and destroyed” by the assassins.
The statement by the prosecutor is the first official confirmation by Turkey about what happened upon Khashoggi’s arrival at the consulate.
The statement follows a series of meetings with the Saudi Public Prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb who traveled to Turkey on Monday for talks to the Turkish prosecutor.
The Turkish official said that the series of meetings with his Saudi counterpart brought forth no “concrete results.”
Turkey has been asking for whereabouts of the body of the murdered columnist of the Washington post who entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October and was killed by Saudi-sent 15 agents.
The world strongly reacted to the killing, with the European states and US Congress calling for sanctions on Saudi Arabia for murdering the vocal critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Turkish officials say that very likely the Saudi government designed the assassination, but Riyadh denies that the state was involved.
Three weeks after the disappearance of Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia announced that he was killed in a “brawl” at the diplomatic building, something President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey rejected.
Upon the announcement, Saudi Arabia sacked its intelligence chief Ahmed al-Asiri. It also announced that 18 Saudis were arrested with links to the incident.
Saudi Arabia said they will be tried in Saudi Arabia, but Ankara called for their extradition to Turkey to stand trial there.
The journalist was an outspoken detractor of bin Salman, a de facto ruler of the oil-wealthy Arab kingdom, criticizing his policies at home like silencing the dissent and also his regional policies, including the war on Yemen and helping the terrorists in Syria.
