Turkish police scour villas owned by rich Saudis in search of clues in Jamal Khashoggi killing

Saudi crown prince may face street protests as he visits Arab countries

Turkish police with canine units and a surveillance drone raided two properties tied to rich Saudis during a search for clues into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Turkey’s state media reported.

Turkey’s prosecutor alleged in a statement that one member of the 15 man Saudi kill team that strangled Mr Khashoggi and disposed of his body phoned a Saudi resident of Yalova province, a lush seaside resort area filled with pricey villas, a day before the 2 October murder, possibly in connection to the disposal of the victim’s body.

Mr Khashoggi’s remains have yet to be found since he died 55 days ago. Saudi officials say he was killed in a rogue operation run by close associates of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman but insist that the 33-year-old heir to the throne had no knowledge of the scheme.

Turkey's prosecutor general issued a rare public statement on the case on Monday in connection to a raid on two villas outside Istanbul. (Istanbul Prosecutor Genreal)

The Saudi prosecutor announced earlier this month that Mr Khashoggi’s body was dismembered by the assassination team and handed off to an unnamed “local collaborator”, but have failed to disclose his name, according to Turkish officials.

The Turkish prosecutor general’s office identified Yalova resident Mohammed Ahmed A Alfoazan as the Saudi citizen who was phoned a day before Mr Khashoggi’s killing by Mansour Othman Abahussein, who they claim is a member of the hit squad.

"Jamal Khashoggi’s body was cut into pieces and dissolved after his murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul," said the statement by the prosecutor, a rare public announcement by a Turkish official in a case dominated by leaks.

"As a part of the ongoing investigation, it has been detected that the day before suspect Mansour Othman got in touch with Saudi citizen Mohammed Ahmed in Yalova," the statement said.

"It is assumed that their conversation is connected to the Khashoggi murder, and the dissolving and hiding of his body."

According to internet sleuths, Mr Abahussein was a military officer in the personal entourage of Prince Mohammed, who is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.

Activists dressed as the Saudi leader and Donald Trump at the White House (Reuters)

According to published reports, a person named Foazan Mohammed Ahmed Alfoazan appears to have been appointed head of a Saudi company shortly after Prince Mohammed seized control of it from one of the rich Saudis he imprisoned and shook down last year on vague corruption charges.

The Anatolia news agency said investigators sealed off the Yalova properties and were using special equipment to drain water from the grounds of one of the properties. The report did not name the owner of the property but said he was outside of Turkey when Mr Khashoggi was killed and has not yet returned.

The Khashoggi matter remains intertwined within US domestic politics. President Donald Trump defends Prince Mohammed as a partner of Washington and a buyer of American weapons. Critics of the White House call for harsh responses to Mr Khashoggi’s killing and the continued US-backed Saudi-led war in Yemen, which has wrought a humanitarian disaster in one of the world’s poorest nations.

The headquarters of the Tunisian journalists’ union raised a poster showing Crown Prince Mohammed holding up a chainsaw, and saying he’s not welcome on Tunisian soil (SNIT)

Prince Mohammed is on a tour of Arab states including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania, en route to a 30 November summit of G20 nations in Argentina. Activists and civil society leaders in some are calling for street protests to coincide with his visit. Activists in Tunisia, which started the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings so opposed by the crown prince and his autocratic allies, have gone to court to demand he is barred from visiting.

“He is responsible for deaths of many children in Yemen, preachers and intellectuals, and the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi,” Abderrezak Makri, leader of an Algerian Islamist party, was quoted as saying by El Watan, an Algiers newspaper.