The Turkish fiancée of a veteran Saudi journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi spoke out on Twitter on Friday demanding information on his mysterious disappearance.
“Three days since his disappearance… Here I ask the Turkish government, as any normal person would, ‘where’ is Mr Jamal? And I ask the Saudi authorities, where is your citizen?” Hatice Cengiz tweeted in the early hours of Saturday.
She also encouraged a global show of solidarity with Khashoggi, thought to have been kidnapped by the Saudi authorities, in the form of demonstrations outside Saudi embassies across the globe, demanding the release of the journalist.
Jamal Khashoggi, who writes opinion pieces for the Washington Post, has not been seen since entering the Saudi consulate building in Istanbul on Tuesday 2 October, where he was to receive an official document for the couple’s marriage.
“I haven’t received any news from him since 1pm (10am GMT) on Tuesday,” 36-year-old Hatice said outside the sealed-off consulate on Wednesday.
She said Khashoggi had left his mobile phone with her.
“We want to know his whereabouts. Where is Jamal?” Hatice said.
“Right now we have no information. As a missing person, he is in danger,” she told the frenzy of reporters gathered at the consulate.
Turkey has said Khashoggi is still in the consulate, whereas the Saudi authorities insist he left the building.
Khashoggi, a former government adviser who went into self-imposed exile in the US last year to avoid possible arrest, has been critical of some of the policies of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Riyadh’s intervention in the war in Yemen.
“We want him to come out of the consulate safe and sound,” Hatice, who declined to give her family name, told AFP. “The same way as he came to Turkey.”
Source: Websites
