All employees on forced leave to kill Khashoggi at the consulate

Khashoggi does not trust them, he is convinced that those offers are a trap, he lives in constant fear of attacks. However, he is not cautious enough: on October 2, 2018, he goes to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, for the bureaucratic procedures in view of his new marriage to his Turkish partner. Before going to that appointment with the consular authorities, he confides in them that the Saudis would not dare harm him on Turkish soil. He will leave that consulate torn to pieces, in a suitcase.

On the day of the fateful appointment, without Khashoggi's knowledge, the Saudi consul general in Istanbul has ordered his employees to stay home, the pretext being that the diplomatic headquarters must serve a visiting official delegation. The "official delegation" is made up of 15 agents from the secret services and the royal guard (i.e. those responsible for the personal protection of Prince Moḥammad bin Salman). The security cameras at the entrances inside the consulate have their memories deactivated.

As safe as he felt in Istanbul, Khashoggi had nevertheless left precise instructions for his companion: high-ranking members of Erdogan's government to be alerted in the event of his disappearance. On the evening of that October 2, when closing time to the public began and the journalist did not reappear, the alarm was raised. From that moment on, almost everything we know is the result of very rapid and very efficient research by Erdogan's intelligence, which had placed bugs in the consulate. The Turkish leader did not miss the opportunity to settle accounts with rival Saudi Arabia.

This tragic episode will remain engraved in the historical memory of relations between the two nations: it brings to light a deep-rooted antagonism between Erdogan, nostalgic for the Ottoman Empire, and a young prince busy rebuilding the foundations of an Arab empire. The two powers have a thousand-year history of fighting for supremacy in the Middle East. It is an unpardonable naivety of Salman to make him believe that an attack on Turkish soil does not trigger a reaction from the local authorities.

when Khashoggi disappears, the Saudis do everything they can to cover up the traces of the crime. First, Riyadh claims that Khashoggi left the consulate on his own and disappeared. Then the government of the Kingdom invokes the diplomatic immunity and the extraterritorial nature of the consulate to block and delay the Turkish police's inspection; it sends a second special team from Riyadh to scientifically clean up the crime scene. In the end, however, the Turks will prevail. In the end, the American report delivered by the CIA to the White House will almost entirely repeat the conclusions of Turkish intelligence.

Khashoggi was interrogated, subjected to psychological torture. Killed, cut to pieces with an electric saw, transported out of the consulate in a suitcase. Meanwhile, a double of his was shown to external cameras to confuse the waters. Turkish intelligence also gave a name and a precise role to the members of the commando of assassins and torturers, some of whom were well-known faces. They always traveled with Prince Moḥammad bin Salman. They were his bodyguards.

The barbaric execution of the journalist sparked an international chorus of protests and condemnations that put Moḥammad bin Salman in difficulty, but not for long. Alternating many contradictory versions of that horrendous crime, the prince tried to remain consistent on one point: he always declared himself innocent and promised to bring justice. Some members of the hit squad were arrested and tried in a show trial.

Between 2019 and 2020, five defendants were sentenced to death and three received a sentence of 24 years in prison. But Khashoggi's children pardoned the five sentenced to death, and this cancelled the sentence. Others, accused of complicity, received light sentences.

A particular interpretation of that crime was given by a fine expert on Saudi history, David Rundell. Precisely because Khashoggi was an insider, a member of the nomenclature, whose family had enriched itself thanks to the favors of the royal house, his behavior was seen as an ignoble betrayal to be punished with exemplary cruelty.