Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Tuesday said Turkey has “unrevealed evidence” on the murder in October of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate General in İstanbul, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
“When we complete the investigation, we’ll share it with the public,” Çavuşoğlu told reporters during a visit to Japan.
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed inside the consulate after he went there to get documents for his forthcoming marriage.
Saudi officials initially insisted that Khashoggi left the compound on Oct. 2 after completing his paperwork. Turkish officials, however, said they believed he was killed inside by a 15-person team sent from Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh’s numerous shifting accounts of the killing have undermined the crown prince’s standing in the West.
While Turkey requests that the suspects should be tried in İstanbul, Saudi officials have ruled out that possibility.
“Fifteen people could not have come to Turkey to kill a Saudi national without being ordered to,” Çavuşoğlu said, adding that so far the Saudi administration has failed to answer the question of who ordered the murder.
“Finding Khashoggi’s body is the responsibility of the Saudi kingdom because those 15 men are there now,” Çavuşoğlu said.
Last week President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he was sure that King Salman was not the one who gave the order to kill Khashoggi.
Many believe that the crown prince was behind the murder, but Erdoğan insistently avoided talking about him.