Jamal Khashoggi
The kingdom says a fight broke out between Jamal Khashoggi, who had fallen out of favour with the Saudi government and people who met him in the consulate ending with his death.
This comes 2 weeks after Khashoggi disappearance after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on Tuesday 2 October and after intense international scrutiny and media coverage.
It says investigations are under way and so far 18 Saudi nationals have been arrested.
Two senior officials have been sacked over the affair one is the deputy intelligence chief Ahmad al-Assiri and Saud al-Qahtani, and second senior aide to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
The Saudi authorities have yet to give evidence to support this version of events.
US President Donald Trump said what had happened was “unacceptable” but that the arrests were an important “first step”. The UK Foreign Office said it was considering its next steps after hearing the report.
What happened on October 2nd?
Khashoggi first visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 28 September to obtain a document certifying that he had divorced his ex-wife, so that he could marry his Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz.
But he was told he would have to return and arranged to come back on 2 October.
Cengiz, wrote in the Washington Post saying after his disappearance: “He did not mind walking into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul because he did not believe that something bad could happen on Turkish soil,”
“Jamal was hardly concerned ahead of his second visit.”
It was reported that Khashoggi told his friends that he had been treated “very warmly” on his first visit and reassured them that he would not face any problems.
CCTV footage which has been shown on Turkish media places Khashoggi at 13.14 arriving to the Saudi Arabian consulate for this scheduled appointed to collect his documents at 13.30.
Despite this, he gave Cengiz two mobile phones and told her to call an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan if he did not come back out.
When she was unable to get in contact with Khashoggi, Cengiz waited outside the consulate for more than 10hrs that day and returned the following morning when Mr Khashoggi had still not reappeared.
Saudi Arabian Consulate, Istanbul, Turkey
