Turkish police said Tuesday that a search of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul revealed evidence that journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed there two weeks ago by a "murder squad" dispatched from Saudi Arabia.
Khashoggi, 59, vanished after he went into the consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Turkish officials say they believe that Khashoggi was tortured, murdered and dismembered by a group of Saudis who flew into the country hours before Khashoggi’s appointment at the consulate.
Here is what we know about Khashoggi:
- Khashoggi was born on Oct. 13, 1958 in Medina, Saudi Arabia.
- He went to primary and secondary school in Saudi Arabia and to college in the United States at Indiana State University. He earned a bachelor's degree in business administration there.
- His grandfather was a personal physician to King Abdulaziz Al Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia.
- He is the cousin of Dodi Fayed, who dated Princess Diana and was killed in the car crash that took her life.
- His uncle, Adnan Khashoggi, was an arms dealer who had a part in the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s. At one point in the 1980s, Adnan Khashoggi was believed to be the richest man in the world.
- He worked as a regional manager for a bookstore before he started his journalism career.
- Khashoggi was a correspondent for the Saudi Gazette; an assistant manager for Okaz; a correspondent for several daily and weekly Saudi Arabian publications; the managing editor for Al Madina and a foreign correspondent for publicans in Afghanistan, Algeria, Kuwait and Sudan.
- Khashoggi became editor for the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Watan, but held that job only a few months. He fled from the country for London to live in exile.
- He was a media aide to Prince Turki Al Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States.
- He went back to work for Al Watan in 2007, but was forced to resign in 2010 after he published a column by a poet that criticized the government.
- He launched the satellite news channel Al-Arab in 2015. It lasted for 11 hours before it was shut down by Bahrain, where the operation was located.
- He was a commentator for several networks and a freelance writer for The Washington Post.
- He was friends with Osama bin Laden and interviewed him several times.
- He moved to United States in June 2007.
- In a March 2018 appearance on Al Jazeera TV's "Upfront," Khashoggi said he'd left Saudi Arabia "because I don't want to be arrested."
- He was married and divorced. He went to Turkey to get some paperwork concerning his divorce so he could marry his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. Cengiz waited for him to come out of the consulate in Turkey for 11 hours.
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