Officials from Saudi Arabia, the United States, Germany, France and Britain have listened to audio recordings related to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey’s president said Saturday, in the first public acknowledgement of the existence of tapes of the slaying.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also told reporters that Saudi Arabia had to “act fairly” and disclose those responsible for the October 2 killing of The Washington Post journalist to rid itself of “suspicion.”
“We gave them the tapes. We gave them to Saudi Arabia, to America, to the Germans, the French, to the British, to all of them,” Erdogan said before departing for Paris to attend ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
“They (Saudi officials) also listened to the conversations and they know. There is no need to distort this. They know for certain who among the 15 is the killer or are the killers,” he said. He was referring to an alleged 15-member assassination squad that Turkey believes was sent to kill Khashoggi at the consulate where he had arrived to obtain papers to marry his Turkish fiancee.
CIA Director Gina Haspel, who visited Turkey last month for information on the investigation, is reported to have heard the audio recordings of the killing.