24 Oct
News and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective
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A gruesome crime has quickly turned into a crisis in international relations: Saudi agents acting on behalf of the crown prince are thought to have dismembered a prominent opposition journalist. The West is disgusted and U.S. President Donald Trump finds himself in a tight spot.
By DER SPIEGEL Staff
The alleged murder is thought to have taken place in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. When he went to the consulate to pick up some papers on Oct. 2, a hit team was allegedly waiting for him.
The following is our cover story from this week print edition of DER SPIEGEL on events in Istanbul. This story went to print on Thursday night prior to the official statement by the Saudi Arabian government released on Saturday that the country’s agents strangled exiled writer Jamal Khashoggi during a fistfight inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Saudi officials say that 18 men have since been arrested in connection with the case, including 15 men who had been sent to the consulate, along with one driver and two consular staff members. The statement was met with immediate sketicism from the international community. The Saudi government also dismissed Major General Ahmed al Assiri, the deputy director of Saudi intelligence, the deputy director of Saudi intelligence, who it claimed had organized the operation, and other intelligence officials.
Doctor Salah Muhammed Al-Tubaigy is an expert with extraordinary skills. His specialty is the rapid autopsy. In an interview with an Arab newspaper, he once boasted that he could dismantle a corpse into manageable parts in record time.
Tubaigy has had a storybook career within the Saudi state apparatus. After completing his medical studies, he opened one of the first research institutes for forensics in the Middle East. He now holds the rank of lieutenant colonel and heads up the forensic medicine department at the Interior Ministry. His task had been to bring research in Saudi Arabia up to Western standards. Now, he and 14 men have instead plunged the royal house into one of the most serious crises to face the country since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
According to the investigation conducted by Turkish police, Tubaigy landed on Oct. 2 at 3:13 a.m. together with eight Saudi Arabian secret service and military personnel in a Gulfstream IV jet belonging to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at Istanbul’s airport. Six other men arrived in the Turkish city a few hours later in a second plane.
Security cameras filmed Tubaigy in a leather jacket and striped sweater as he passed through passport control. He checked in for three nights at a hotel located near the Saudi Arabian Consulate, but he actually left the city at 10:46 p.m. that same day.
A Tale as Gruesome As It Is Grotesque
There are two versions of what happened in the 19-and-a-half hours between his arrival and departure. And whichever one is true, it is a crime thriller with details so gruesome and grotesque that a James Bond movie would pale by comparison. It is also one that has shaken the international community since that day.
Saudi Arabian television has claimed that Tubaigy and his colleagues traveled to Istanbul as tourists. But that hardly seems credible given that the group flew back home only a few hours after arrival. The Turkish police, for their part, are convinced that the 15 men played a decisive role in the alleged murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent opponent of the Saudi regime. He disappeared during a visit to the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul and has been missing since Oct. 2.
Turkish investigators and intelligence officials believe they know what happened in those hours: According to their version of events, the commando squad from Riyadh waited for Khashoggi in the offices of the consulate. The men drugged and beat him. Then, while he was still conscious, they cut his fingers off. In the end, they claim, the men decapitated him.
They say that forensics expert Tubaigy then unpacked the bone saw he had brought along with him. According to the Turkish investigation, he put on headphones to listen to music and recommended that people in the room next door do the same because it would make the work easier.
He then dismembered Khashoggi’s body. “It was like a Tarantino film,” says one Turkish investigator. According to a report published in Yeni Safak, a newspaper loyal to the government in Ankara, Turkish authorities have audio recordings documenting the murder.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asserted in an interview with Bloomberg that Khashoggi had left the consulate after just a short time. But the prince has yet to provide any evidence to support that claim. Unfortunately, all surveillance cameras failed that day, though the manufacturer of the system swears that such a thing is not technically possible.


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