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IPFS News Link • Saudi Arabia

"Body double" seen of killed Saudi journalist [video]

• The Horn News

Footage of a man in Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's dress shirt, suit jacket, and pants has been discovered — and it's a bizarre twist to the increasingly strange story of Khashoggi's demise. CNN aired the footage Sunday and cited a Turkish official as describing the man as a "body double" and a member of the Saudi team sent to Istanbul to target the writer.

Khashoggi's "body double" left the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul following his killing there, according to a surveillance video, while a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage made four calls to the royal's office around the same time, reports said Monday.

Turkish media reports and officials maintain that a 15-member Saudi team flew to Istanbul on Oct. 2, knowing Khashoggi would arrive for a document he needed to get married. Once he was inside the diplomatic mission, the Saudis allegedly accosted Khashoggi, cut off his fingers, then killed and dismembered the 59-year-old writer.

Several human right organizations around the world are now calling on the United Nations to investigate into his killing.

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Watch CNN's body double footage —

The reports by CNN and a pro-government Turkish newspaper came just a day before Prince Mohammed's high-profile investment summit is to begin in Riyadh and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised that details of Khashoggi's killing "will be revealed in all its nakedness."

That yet again adds to the pressure Saudi Arabia faces over the slaying of the Washington Post columnist.

The kingdom's claim that Khashoggi died in a "fistfight" met international skepticism and allegations of a cover-up meant to absolve the 33-year-old crown prince of direct responsibility.

The man is seen in the footage walking out of the consulate via its back exit with an accomplice, then taking a taxi to Istanbul's famed Sultan Ahmed Mosque, where he went into a public bathroom, changed back out of the clothes and left.


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