Turkey denies top Saudi prosecutor’s request for whole Khashoggi file: report

Saud al-Mujeb, Saudi’s top prosecutor heading the probe into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, asked Istanbul’s Chief Public Prosecutor İrfan Fidan to share the whole investigation folder, including evidence, phone records, statements and footage, during their meeting on Monday, however this request was denied, Turkey’s TRT Haber reported.

Fidan did, however, allegedly share the statements of the Saudi consulate employees.

Mujeb and the delegation accompanying him left the Istanbul Çağlayan Courthouse after a 75-minute closed-door meeting with Fidan. The Saudi delegation then went to the consulate.

The representative of the Chief Prosecutor heading Turkey’s probe into Khashoggi’s killing, Hasan Yılmaz, and Public Prosecutor İsmet Bozkurt also attended the meeting.

Fidan requested that the 18 suspects arrested in Saudi Arabia over the killing should be sent to Turkey to be tried, echoing earlier sentiment by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Turkish prosecutor also asked that the location of Khashoggi’s body be revealed.

Mujeb just reiterated Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir who said on Saturday that those behind the killing of Khashoggi would be prosecuted in the kingdom.

The suspects Turkey wants extradited include a 15-man security team that it says flew in hours before the killing and carried it out.

Mujeb told the Turkish delegation that they could join the prosecution process in Saudi Arabia.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and a critic of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed inside the Consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul after he went there to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage.

After denying any involvement in the disappearance of Khashoggi, 59, for two weeks, Saudi Arabia on Oct. 20 acknowledged his death, saying he had died in a fistfight.

Since then, Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor said Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated, contradicting the previous official statement that it happened accidentally during a tussle in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Riyadh's numerous shifting accounts of the killing have undermined Prince Mohammed's standing.