In this fairly recent case, Washington Post columnist and Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, for his critical stances against the Saudi Arabian government and its crown prince.
While there exists a variety of conspiracies of what exactly happened and how his murder came to pass, Saudi Arabia did admit that the killing was premeditated and the United Nations ruled that it was done at the command of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Before we get into the details of the case, it might help to have some background on Khashoggi. He was born Oct. 13, 1958 and received his primary and secondary education in Saudi Arabia before going on to get his bachelor’s in business administration from Indiana State University.
As an aside, Khashoggi has some noteworthy relatives – he is the cousin of the Dodi Fayed, the Egyptian film producer and boyfriend of Princess Diana (who of course both died in a car accident in Paris in 1997) and is the nephew of billionaire arms dealer Adnan Kashoggi, who played a significant role in the Iran-Contra scandal.
While Khashoggi started out as a regional manager of a Saudi Arabian bookstore chain, he eventually got into journalism as a correspondent for the Saudi Gazettein the late 1980s. This sparked a lengthy career as a journalist, where he worked for numerous daily and weekly Saudi Arabian publications before eventually making it as editor-in-chief of the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Madina from 1991-1999.
During this time, he also served as foreign correspondent for Al Madina in countries such as Afghanistan, Kuwait, Sudan, and so on – and he scored such notable interviews as Osama bin Laden himself. Rumors also have him working with the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Agency.
While a successful and well-respected Saudi Arabian journalist, Khashoggi ran into problems due to his political views. He was highly critical of the Saudi Arabian’s conservative and repressive government, especially of bin Salman (the crown prince).
In 2003, he lost his job as editor of another paper after two months, a result of his publishing two opinion pieces critical of the government. He landed on his feet as media adviser to then Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Turki al Faisal, before being appointed to lead a 24-hour Saudi Arabian news channel in 2010.
Khashoggi remained in this role with broadcast television before he eventually left Saudi Arabia after being pressured by the government over his anti-conservative views for the Saudi government and his cautioning tweets against supporting President Donald Trump.
After relocating to the U.S. in 2017, Khashoggi began writing as a columnist for The Washington Post, where he wrote about his experiences as a journalist who spoke out against the Saudi government and the difficulties faced by opposition in Saudi Arabia.
On Oct. 2, 2018, Khashoggi made a trip to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents related to his planned marriage with his fiance, Hatice Cengiz, a 36-year-old Ph.D. candidate at a university in Istanbul.
While Khashoggi was seen entering the consulate, he was never seen leaving despite initial reports from the Saudi government that he had left and was somewhere in downtown Istanbul. A joint investigation by Saudi and Turkish officials found evidence that Khashoggi had been killed and tortured in the embassy by a 15-man Saudi Arabian team, before being dismembered and dissolved in acid.
No exact clear picture has emerged of what happened inside that embassy more than a year later, although investigations by the Turkish government and the United Nations have indicated that the Saudi government was responsible for the assassination, specifically at the order of bin Salman.
So far 11 people have been charged in Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi assassination, five of whom were sentenced with the death penalty. While the United Nations has described the assassination as the “premeditated extrajudicial execution" of Khashoggi by the Saudi Arabian government, the Saudi Arabian government continues to deny the allegations.
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