Saudis Inform Turks: We Restored Him, Khashoggi in Riyadh

Local Editor

A source in the Gulf revealed that the Saudi authorities informed Ankara yesterday [Friday] that the Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi «is in Riyadh». 

The source listed a number of Khashoggi's movements in the past period, most notably his meetings with Khalid bin Salman in Washington, which raises more questions on the issue.

A Gulf source told al-Akhbar that the transfer of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi to Riyadh has been confirmed. 

“Around 10:00 AM yesterday, the Saudi authorities contacted their Turkish counterparts and informed them to end the debate of Khashoggi’s fate. We restored him. He is on Saudi territories,” the source confirmed.

According to the information, Khashoggi's move to Saudi Arabia was complicated. 

“This came after the Saudi ambassador to Washington, the son of the king and the brother of the crown prince, Khalid bin Salman, gave earlier assurances to the man that he would not be harmed if he returned to the country.”

In further details, the information added that Khashoggi entered the building No. 1 in the consulate, where his fiancée was waiting outside, and then exited from another building number 2 through a corridor connecting the two buildings before being forced into a white car heading to the airport. 

The source said the operation was colluded by a Turkish officer. Doubts still hover over what happened. First, Khashoggi met "face to face" with Khalid bin Salman in Washington, four times in the past. This prompted US officials to ask Khashoggi about the reasons for these meetings, despite his bad relations with the Saudi regime. 

The matter, however, was set in the frame of asking the Saudi prince to help him as an ambassador to Washington. 

The second "suspicious" thing, according to Khashoggi's followers, was that he had transferred a sum of more than $ 200,000 money to Turkey. 

He used it to buy an apartment in Istanbul, where his Turkish fiancé was supposed to move. 

Here are two facts that make Khashoggi’s disappearance a difficult puzzle. The first is that a short while ago the man talked to a well-known Arab journalist and presented himself as a mediator between him and the Saudi regime for reconciliation. 

This raised some questions about how a man of opposition could mediate with the regime, as if Khashoggi was not aware that he is unacceptable to this extent. Second, since yesterday, Khashoggi’s phone is in the hands of the adviser at the Royal Court Saud al-Qahtani. The latter contacted princes, writers and public figures, who had communicated with Khashoggi over the past period through this phone, warning them that the Royal Court now has all the information about who is communicating with Khashoggi.

Source: Al-Akhbar Newspaper, Translated by website team