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  • The disappearance of a prominent Saudi journalist in Turkey last week shocked the world.

  • Jamal Khashoggi is a Washington Post journalist and Saudi royal family adviser turned exiled critic.

  • He mysteriously vanished on October 2nd, 2018.

  • The last place he was seen was at the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

  • He entered, but reportedly never left.

  • Over a week later, little is still known about Khashoggi's whereabouts.

  • Turkish officials now fear the worst.

  • They worry that the Saudis murdered the journalist in cold blood when he entered its diplomatic station.

  • But why would Saudi Arabia even want him dead?

  • Jamal Khashoggi wasn't always a critic of the Saudi regime.

  • In fact, he had a history of working very closely with the Saudi government.

  • He even served as an adviser to senior Saudi officials for a time.

  • He graduated from the Indiana State University in 1982, before launching his career as a journalist.

  • He went on to work for various Saudi publications and news channels.

  • He made a name for himself for his foreign reporting from places like Algeria, Kuwait, and Afghanistan during the soviet rule.

  • He even interviewed Saudi national Osama Bin Laden on multiple occasions, before Bin Laden went on to become the leader of Al Qaeda.

  • His coverage made him one of Saudi Arabia's leading journalists.

  • He went on to hold several editor positions at leading Saudi newspapers, and became the general manager of Al Arab News channel.

  • Despite his close relationship with the Saudi royal family, his vocal support for reforms often got him in trouble.

  • He was even forced out of several newsroom leadership positions on several occasions.

  • He advocated for equal rights for women, criticized the kingdom's crackdown on human rights activists, and he also and called for greater press freedoms.

  • In 2018, Saudi Arabia ranked 169th out of 180 on Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index.

  • [Adam Coogle] Jamal was always what you might think of as an institutional reformist.

  • He always supported reform. He always supported liberalization.

  • [Judah Robinson] That was especially true after the new crown prince, Mohammad Bin Salman, became the de factor leader.

  • Khashoggi fled Saudi Arabia in September, 2017 and went into self-imposed exile in the United States.

  • [Adam Coogle] He really read the tea leaves well on that because right after he fled Saudi Arabia and [Mohammed Bin Salman]

  • embarked on a massive arrest campaign of any sort of independent voices.

  • Prominent clerics, dissidents, economists, and others were really rounded up en masse.

  • And Jamal probably would have been one of them.

  • [Judah Robinson] Khashoggi became even more outspoken in his exile.

  • He became a journalist for The Washington Post.

  • He openly criticized the Saudi-led Coalitions' military campaign in Yemen, as well as Mohammed Bin Salman's leadership.

  • But if Khashoggi was in exile and feared the Saudi government, what was he doing in its Consulate in Istanbul?

  • Just note: we want to point out that some of the following information might be disturbing to some of our viewers.

  • Jamal Khashoggi entered the consulate on October 2nd, to pick up official divorce documents.

  • 00:02:56,625 --> 00:03:00,291 Documents he needed to be able to marry his Turkish fiance.

  • She was waiting for him outside of the entrance of the Saudi compound.

  • She was the only witness to see him enter.

  • She waited for him for 11 hours -- but says he never emerged.

  • Days later -- Turkish officials leaked information to various news organizations

  • that the investigators believed Kashoggi was murdered by a team of 15 Saudi agents.

  • The widely reported allegation is that his body was dismembered inside of the consulate.

  • The Turkish government has not publicly made this claim yet, nor it has released evidence to back up the reports of his alleged murder.

  • [Adam Coogle] Saudi Arabia and Turkey have had some bumps in their relationship over the last few years.

  • So, you know, things haven't been great between the two countries but they I don't think that things between them have have descended into sort of

  • open diplomatic warfare if you will. And I think, unfortunately, this does have the potential to possibly lead there.

  • [Judah Robinson] Saudi Arabia denies the reports of his murder.

  • Mohammed Bin Salman even responded to the accusations himself exclusively to Bloomberg news on October, 5th.

  • Saudi officials claim that the journalist exited using another entrance of the building.

  • But when asked to provide proof of this claim, like security footage, they say the cameras weren't working at the time.

  • [Adam Coogle] I have a hard time believing that.

  • If they really want to prove that Jamal left the embassy they should produce

  • whatever evidence that they have that shows that like just saying it is not enough.

  • [Judah Robinson] The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi has created international pressure

  • on the kingdom to produce evidence of what happened to the journalist.

  • The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have been allied since the end of World War II --

  • 00:04:44,125 --> 00:04:49,375 with deep military and economic links, despite obvious differences in approaches to human rights.

  • Even one of Mohammed Bin Salman's closest allies, President Donald Trump, weighed in:

  • [U.S. President Donald Trump] We do not like seeing what's going on. Now, as you know, they're saying 'we had nothing to do with it.'

  • But, so far, everyone is saying they had nothing to do with it.

  • And, it's inside of Turkey. And, the Turkish government is working very strongly so far. So, we will see what happens.

  • [Judah Robinson] It was later confirmed that National Security advisor John Bolton and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner

  • spoke directly to Mohammed bin Salman on this issue.

  • It's important to note here that Kushner and the crown prince have had a particularly close relationship.

  • As international pressure mounts, Saudi Arabia said on the 9th, that it will allow Turkish investigators

  • to search the consulate over a week after Khashoggi went missing.

  • But some say this won't be enough to solve the case of his disappearance.

  • [Adam Coogle] And I think, you know, barring any new revelation

  • that's just going to always point to some sort of Saudi role in Jamal's disappearance.

  • [Judah Robinson] The United States has notoriously turned a blind eye to Saudi Arabia's actions over recent decades.

  • But in an era of America First - it's even less likely that the U.S. or the international community will respond.

  • [U.S. President Donald Trump] We're going to have to see what happens.

  • I don't like stopping massive amounts of money that's being poured into our country on I know they're talking about different kinds of sanctions,

  • but they're spending $110 billion on military equipment and on things that create jobs, like jobs and others for this country.

The disappearance of a prominent Saudi journalist in Turkey last week shocked the world.

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