Turkey on Thursday said the Saudi statement over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was “insufficient” and insisted that the killing was “premeditated.”
“We find all those steps positive but insufficient,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a televised speech.
His comments came shortly after Saudi Arabia admitted that 59-year-old Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate last month.
Riyadh’s public prosecutor said the journalist’s body parts were then handed over to an agent outside the consulate grounds and that five Saudi officials were facing the death penalty over the murder.
“I want to say personally that I don’t find some of the statements satisfactory,” Cavusoglu said. “This murder was premeditated.” Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnit and critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was last seen stepping into the doors of the Istanbul consulate to obtain paperwork for his marriage to a Turkish woman.