WEB DESK
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a planned and brutal murder and called on Saudi Arabia to extradite 18 suspects to Turkey to face justice for the crime.
Erdogan’s highly anticipated comments, during a speech to his ruling party in the capital Ankara, contradicted Saudi accounts that Khashoggi was killed when an argument inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul escalated into a fistfight.
Erdogan urged the Saudi authorities to reveal whether senior officials had been involved in planning the killing, suggesting Turkey was unsatisfied with the explanations that Saudi authorities had so far provided.
“Murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was premeditated”, Erdogan said, adding that Turkey has strong evidence that the murder was planned.
Erdogan added that all information, evidence that has been revealed till now showed that Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal murder.
Erdogan said Saudi teams made explorations in the city’s Belgrad Forest and the northwestern province of Yalova before murdering Khashoggi.
“Vienna convention would not allow such a “brutal” murder to happen”, Erdogan also stated.
“Diplomatic immunity, which is a part of the Vienna Convention, will be debated”, he remarked.
Separately, Erdogan offered condolences to the family and relatives of Khashoggi.
Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, had gone missing since entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
After denying knowledge of Khashoggi’s whereabouts for two weeks, Saudi Arabia on Saturday said he was killed during a fight inside its Istanbul consulate.
His body has not been recovered, nor has Saudi Arabia explained its shifting narrative on what transpired.