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Khashoggi’s Apple Watch Unlikely to Have Recorded Evidence of His Fate

Khashoggi’s Apple Watch Unlikely to Have Recorded Evidence of His Fate
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Local Editor

An Apple smart watch owned by missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the media spotlight on Friday, as it might or might not be pivotal to investigating his alleged murder.

However, tech specialists remain skeptical as to whether the Apple wearable device might provide solid evidence of missing Saudi journalist Khashoggi’s alleged murder.

First, a Turkish reporter suggested that Khashoggi himself recorded the audio of his interrogation by a "hit squad" within the Saudi Arabia Consulate in Istanbul more than a week ago. The Sabah report said that the audio has been uploaded to Apple's cloud server — iCloud — through his iPhone, which at the time was in the possession of Khashoggi's fiancée Hatice Cengiz.

Still, the report was later found doubtful, as it was riddled with technical discrepancies. One thing the reporter got right is that the watch was actually on the journalist when he entered the building. This was later confirmed by two Turkish officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Nonetheless, the Gazetesi report is otherwise full of inconsistencies. The reporter says the alleged murderers used Khashoggi's fingerprints to access the device, but an Apple representative confirmed to CNN that Apple Watches don't have a fingerprint scan feature.

In an interview for Reuters, two Turkish officials speculated that Khashoggi's watch could have been paired to one of the two phones he handed to Cengiz before entering the Consulate. Slate notes that it remains unclear what model of iPhone Khashoggi used and whether the connection between the two devices was stable.

Furthermore, according to a TechCrunch report, any data stored on iCloud is encrypted with Khashoggi's passcode and is inaccessible by any law enforcement agency or even Apple itself. Therefore, if any data has been transmitted by the watch, it must be on the iPhone itself to be at least theoretically accessible.

Meanwhile, it is unclear where the iPhone currently is, but it would a safe assumption that the device is in the hands of Turkish law enforcement or intelligence services.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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