Khashoggi, 59, first visited the Saudi consulate the morning of Sept. 28 to get some paperwork for his upcoming marriage. He was told he’d have to come back. The following week.
According to Erdogan the hit team was informed immediately, and some consular officials made hurried trips back to Saudi Arabia, indicating “the preparation work and planning was done there.”
On Oct. 1, a team of three people arrive in Istanbul on a chartered flight, then go to the consulate. A separate team from the consulate, meanwhile, goes on a reconnaissance mission in the Belgrad forest just north of Istanbul and in Yalova, across the Sea of Marmara. A few hours later, at 1:45 a.m. on Oct. 2, a second group arrives on another chartered plane. Then a third group of “nine people, including generals, arrives in Istanbul on a private flight and goes to another hotel.” Between 9:50 and 11:00 a.m. on Oct. 2, Erdogan said, “this team of 15 people in total arrives at the consulate separately… and regroups there.” The hard drive of the consulate’s CCTV system was removed, and Khashoggi was called to confirm his appointment. He had been in London for a couple of days, but was now back in Istanbul and he walked into the consulate at 1:08 in the afternoon.
The first phony account of Khashoggi’s whereabouts came from the crown prince himself, who told Bloomberg News just one day after Khashoggi’s disappearance that he had left the consulate. “My understanding is he entered and he got out after a few minutes or one hour. I’m not sure.” When asked if Khashoggi was facing charges in Saudi Arabia, he responded coyly: “If he’s in Saudi Arabia I would know that.”
The planning of the operation bears all the hubristic hallmarks of someone who thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. One of the most bizarre parts of the Saudi cover-up was to dress up one member of the 15-member hit team to look like Khashoggi. With a portly build similar to Khashoggi’s, and wearing the journalist’s own clothes, eyeglasses and a fake beard, he departed the consulate through the rear entrance and went by taxi into Istanbul’s Sultanahmet tourist district, where Turkish security cameras captured him strolling near Istanbul’s famous Blue Mosque. Turkish media identified him as Mustafa Al-Madani. Erdogan said he departed early Oct. 2 for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on a commercial flight with one other person.
On Friday last week, when Saudi officials finally acknowledged that he died while in the consulate, they said the death was the result of a “fistfight,” a version considered dubious by most observers. On Sunday, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, told Fox News that Khashoggi’s killing was a “rogue operation” and a “tremendous mistake,” compounded by “the attempt to cover-up.”
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Originally Posted by v12cl
