Istanbul police interrogate Saudi Consulate staff

There’s the tape, the Apple watch, the bone saw; the claims about the why, where and how Jamal Khashoggi was murdered have been looping for nearly a month now. Yet there is still no sign of the dissident Saudi journalist’s body, which was allegedly dismembered. And even as a Saudi prosecutor declared that Turkey had provided information that his murder was premeditated, he stopped short of confirming that this is what Saudi investigators had themselves concluded. There are few signs that the Saudi authorities are willing to fully cooperate with Ankara, or so Turkish officials say.

Today, Turkish officials leaked claims that a forensic team had not been permitted to search a well in the departed Saudi consul general’s garden, part of an effort to locate Khashoggi’s corpse. They were allowed, however, to draw a water sample.

In a bid to keep up pressure on the Saudis, the Turkish Arab Media Association, of which Khashoggi was a member, organized a protest outside the Saudi Consulate this evening. Yasin Aktay, a close friend of the victim and a prominent Islamist intellectual who was present at the vigil, declared that the case would not be covered up and that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was "the biggest guarantor of this." He added, "I believe the [Saudi] king will ensure that justice will be done as the Quran requires." The Washington Post columnist entered the building on Oct. 2 to get documents to wed his Turkish fiancée, never to re-emerge.

Meanwhile, the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office concluded its interrogation of 38 employees of the Saudi Consulate. They included a chauffeur, a technician and a switchboard operator, the pro-government Yeni Safak reported today. There was no word, though, of their testimonies.