• Khashoggi Killing Detailed in New Book: ‘We Came to Take You to Riyadh’ - The New York Times

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/world/middleeast/khashoggi-killing-book.html

    By Carlotta Gall

    Jan. 17, 2019

    ISTANBUL — A new book written by three Turkish reporters and drawing on audio recordings of the killing of a Saudi expatriate, Jamal Khashoggi, offers new details about an encounter that began with a demand that he return home and ended in murder and dismemberment.

    “First we will tell him ‘We are taking you to Riyadh,’” one member of a Saudi hit team told another, the book claims. “If he doesn’t come, we will kill him here and get rid of the body.”

    Turkish officials have cited the recordings, saying they captured the death of Mr. Khashoggi, a journalist, in his Oct. 2 visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. And intelligence officials leaked some details in a campaign to force Saudi Arabia to own up to the crime.

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    But the new book offers the most comprehensive description to date of what is on those recordings. It sets the scene as a team of Saudi operatives lay their plans before Mr. Khashoggi arrives, and then recounts what happened next.
    A security guard at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul after Mr. Khashoggi was killed there.CreditChris Mcgrath/Getty Images
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    A security guard at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul after Mr. Khashoggi was killed there.CreditChris Mcgrath/Getty Images

    The three journalists, Abdurrahman Simsek, Nazif Karaman and Ferhat Unlu, work for an investigative unit at the pro-government newspaper Sabah, and are known for their close ties to Turkish intelligence. They said that they did not have access to the audio recordings but were briefed by intelligence officials who did.

    A Turkish security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed separately that the details described in the book were accurate. The book, “Diplomatic Atrocity: The Dark Secrets of the Jamal Khashoggi Murder,” is written in Turkish and went on sale in December.