Murder in Istanbul

Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi citizen and American legal resident, went inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to obtain some paperwork for his wedding. Just one last thing before a happy life with his soon-to-be- wife Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting for him outside the consulate. Reminiscent of the epic movie Heat, where Deniro had to take care of one last job before disappearing with his girlfriend. He never comes back.

KSA came up with a laughable face-saving fiction, that some rogue officers killed Khashoggi in an operation gone awry. Washington made enormous noise over the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the UK’s intelligence services, and his daughter Yulia Skripal. They were poisoned with Novichok nerve agent known as A-234 in Salisbury, England, allegedly by Russian agents. In reaction to the attempted murder of the Skripals, about a dozen countries expelled more than a 100 Russian diplomats and spies, a move that was dubbed by Theresa May the “largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history.” The United States expelled over 60 diplomats and shut down the Russian consulate in Seattle. The rogue story in the Skripals case was not accepted. Washington has quickly accepted the fiction. In fact, Trump sort of suggested this cover story to the Saudis who are now considering putting it out.

Fifteen Saudi agents reportedly arrived in Istanbul hours before Khashoggi’s appointment at the consulate. One of them was an autopsy expert who is alleged to have used a bone saw to dismember Khashoggi’s body “There is a video of the moment of him being killed,” Kemal Ozturk, a columnist for a pro-government newspaper, said. President Trump has neither ordered the expulsion of 60 Saudi diplomats and spies nor the shutting down of any Saudi consulate inside the United States. Sadly, the $110 billion arms deal and the rapprochement between KSA and Israel are too sacrosanct to be disturbed for Khashoggi.

Furthermore, such actions terrorise the general population generally and journalists specifically. Khashoggi was an Op-Ed columnist for The Washington Post. Usually, there is huge furore over journalists’ rights, freedom, and the ability to write without fear of being intimidated or silenced. However, the loudest noise is coming from Saudi-sponsored media, which is spinning the facts by spreading photoshopped picture of Khashoggi leaving the consulate and speaking blatant lies such as that Qatar owns The Washington Post. I wonder if it sent chills down Jeffrey Bezos’s spine.

Pakistani journalists, who are otherwise quick to install the incompatible Western culture in Pakistan selectively, are silent. Aren’t they all for free journalism? Or this is all only confined to national borders? Reporters Sans Frontières or Reporters Without Borders would be very upset with their Pakistani peers. Pakistani journalists should know that their enemy is not the Establishment but rather such unaccountable allies of the West who allegedly slaughter journalists with impunity.

A senior Turkish official said, “It is like ‘Pulp Fiction.’ Actually, it is more like Breaking Bad where a chemist cooks crystal meth that is distributed to far-flung areas, creating crime in society. At one point the drug empire reaches beyond borders even all the way to Europe. Troublemakers in the show are incinerated, making their bodies disappear in thin air. Just like Khashoggi is nowhere to be found.

Keeping big corporations as well as the gun- manufacturing corporations in America in business trumps everything, including a legal US resident. Trump said, “It’s in Turkey, and it’s not a citizen, as I understand it.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2018.

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