Jamal Khashoggi: The Hunt for the Missing Journalist

For all you babes that enjoy a good conspiracy theory every once in a while, you better hop on this. For everyone that hasn’t heard about this, get ready for some crazy stuff.

Okay so, it’s been a few weeks since this happened and I think the only reason we’re even hearing about this is because the missing journalist was tied with the Washington Post here in America, so Trump got invested.

Here’s the story: on October 2nd, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and never walked out. Cue some freaky horror movie music. Word has it that Khashoggi was there to either file some divorce paperwork to marry his new fiance or he was summoned there by the Saudi government. Either way, he disappeared that day and a dinky security camera was the last thing to see him alive.

Via BBC News

And that’s where the conspiracies started. Saudi Arabia, of course, denied the fact that Khashoggi was dead at first, but eventually they owned up to the fact that he was killed in the consulate. Accidentally. Yeah, once Turkey came out with some incriminating evidence that couldn’t be ignored, Saudi basically said, “Oh crap,” and owned up to as little as possible.

Via CBC

The gist is that Turkey claimed they had an audio file from the iWatch Khashoggi was wearing while he was brutally tortured and dismembered in the Saudi consulate. While Saudi claims it was an interrogation gone wrong, many countries believe that that’s a lie. Turkey especially, believes he was dismembered so that he could be transported outside of the consulate to be disposed of without suspicion.

But why would Saudi Arabia want to murder a journalist and then try to cover it up? Well, not only is the crown prince a royal jerk, but turns out Khashoggi often wrote about and supported Saudi progressives, which of course did not go over well with his government. Khashoggi was so disliked by the Saudi government that he even left Saudi to live in another country (some say because he feared for his life).

Via Fox

This was around the time that Trump really stepped in. After a 20 minute phone conversation with the prince, Trump said that Saudi again had denied claims to murdering the journalist and that “rogue killers” were probably involved. The Washington Post even went so far as to post blurred passports of the suspected rogues.

We can’t be sure if these men were in fact “rogue” or if they were hired by the Saudi government to do the dirty work, but new reports from The New York Times show footage of the aide to the crown prince, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, entering the consulate hours before Khashoggi disappeared. Yet again, the Saudi government denies any involvement. What a surprise.

Via New York Times

Now, here are the lesser believed conspiracies associated with all the shenanigans. One, and this is a well known fact, is that the Trump administration has given billions to Saudi Arabia in arms sales. Some people believe that when Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talked to the Saudi government officials, it was all a formality. Some people believe that Trump will side with whatever Saudi says because Trump himself has stated that he doesn’t want to risk the alliance he has with the Saudi government.

There were also rumors that Saudi threatened to raise the prices and change the currency of oil for America if we ever tried to investigate, but these rumors aren’t confirmed.

For now, this is all the information I could gather, but stay tuned because ya girl is going to keep digging.

Disclaimer: I got most of my info from The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post.

Cover image via PBS