A Saudi journalist is missing, and Turkish authorities believe he was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, 59, entered the consulate on October 2 to obtain documents necessary to marry his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz.

Cengiz has said she waited for Khashoggi outside the consulate for roughly 11 hours but he never came out. She tweeted on Saturday: “Jamal is not dead. I cannot believe that he has been killed.”

Though details remain hazy, here’s a timeline of the events surrounding Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Who is Jamal Khashoggi?

Khashoggi, a prominent journalist who was often critical of the Saudi government and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, wrote for The Washington Post’s global opinion section.

Karen Attiah, Khashoggi’s editor at The Post, told CNN on October 7: “We’re still hoping for the best, but of course this news, if true, has us all completely devastated. This is an attack on us as well at The Washington Post.”

Khashoggi had a long, complicated, rich career.

He went from interviewing a young Osama bin Laden in the 1980s to becoming one of the top journalists in his country to living in self-imposed exile.

Khashoggi was at one point an adviser to senior officials in the Saudi government and worked for top news outlets in the country. He was long seen as close to the ruling elite there.

But last year, Khashoggi had a falling out with the government over Prince Mohammed’s controversial tactics as he’s worked to consolidate his power, including arresting powerful business executives and members of the royal family. It drove Khashoggi to leave Saudi Arabia for the US in the summer of 2017.

In recent months, Khashoggi reportedly told colleagues that he feared for his life.

After leaving Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi divided his time among London, Istanbul, and Virginia. He’s a US resident with a green card, but he is not a citizen.

What Saudi Arabia has said about Khashoggi’s disappearance

Saudi officials have claimed that Khashoggi left the consulate, but they haven’t provided evidence.

“Mr. Khashoggi visited the consulate to request paperwork related to his marital status and exited shortly thereafter,” an unnamed Saudi official told The New York Times earlier this month.

The Saudi government has vehemently denied allegations that Khashoggi was killed, describing them as “baseless.”

Prince Mohammed earlier this month told Bloomberg News that Turkish authorities were welcome to search the consulate. “We have nothing to hide,” he said.

“He’s a Saudi citizen, and we are very keen to know what happened to him,” he added. “And we will continue our dialogue with the Turkish government to see what happened to Jamal there.”

When asked whether there were any charges against Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed said, “Actually, we need to know where Jamal is first.”

The Saudi ambassador to the US told The Post on October 8 that it would be “impossible” for consulate employees to kill Khashoggi and cover up his death “and we wouldn’t know about it.”

The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV network last Thursday aired a report claiming that 15 men said to be involved in Khashoggi’s disappearance weren’t sent to Istanbul for the purpose of capturing or killing him but were just tourists.

Turkish media has reported that the men arrived at Istanbul’s airport on October 2, the day Khashoggi went missing, and left Turkey later that night.

Saudi Arabia is reportedly preparing to release a report saying Khashoggi was killed

Saudi Arabia is preparing to release a report claiming Khashoggi was killed as part of a botched interrogation, CNN reported on Monday, citing two sources.

The interrogation was supposed to result in Khashoggi’s abduction from Turkey, CNN’s sources said.

One source told CNN that the report was likely to say the operation was conducted without clearance or transparency and vow to hold those involved accountable.

A Daily Beast report on Tuesday suggested that the Saudis planned to scapegoat an unnamed two-star general and claim that he botched a plan to interrogate Khashoggi and accidentally killed him.

What Turkey has said about Khashoggi’s disappearance

Turkish officials have accused the Saudis of killing Khashoggi, saying there’s no evidence he ever left the consulate.

A high-level Turkish official told The Associated Press on Tuesday that police who entered the consulate found “certain evidence” that Khashoggi was killed there.

Turkey has been putting a great deal of pressure on Saudi Arabia to be more transparent.

On October 8, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded Saudi officials provide proof that Khashoggi left the consulate.

“Do you not have cameras and everything of the sort?” Erdogan said. “They have all of them. Then why do you not prove this? You need to prove it.”

Throughout the investigation, there have been somewhat conflicting messages from Turkey on Khashoggi’s disappearance as details of what might have happened to him have been gradually leaked to media outlets.

In a report on October 9, The Times described a senior official as saying Turkey had concluded Khashoggi was killed “on orders from the highest levels” of the Saudi royal court.

But Yasin Aktay, an adviser to Erdogan, said on October 10 that “the Saudi state is not blamed here,” suggesting that “a deep state” was responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Last Thursday, Erdogan increased pressure on Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi’s disappearance.

“We cannot remain silent to such an incident,” Erdogan was quoted by Turkish media as telling reporters, according to The Post.

“How is it possible for a consulate, an embassy not to have security camera systems? Is it possible for the Saudi Arabian consulate where the incident occurred not to have camera systems?” he continued.

“If a bird flew, if a mosquito appeared, these systems would catch them,” he said, adding that he believed that the Saudis “would have the most advanced of systems.”

What we know about the investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance

There appears to be video footage of Khashoggi entering the consulate, but no footage of him leaving has been made public. Turkish officials have said that some footage from the consulatemysteriously disappeared.

Local police are examining video footage from security cameras in the area, and on Monday police entered the consulate to investigate for the first time. Erdogan said on Tuesday that investigators found some surfaces that had been newly painted over.

Turkish officials allege that the Saudi government sent a 15-man team to Istanbul via private jets to kill Khashoggi at the consulate. The AP described Turkish media as saying the team included “Saudi royal guards, intelligence officers, soldiers, and an autopsy expert.”

Turkish media published what it said were videos of Saudi intelligence officers entering and leaving Turkey via Istanbul’s airport.

Citing an unnamed US official, The Post reported on October 7 that Turkish investigators believed Khashoggi was killed and his body most likely dismembered, placed in boxes, and flown out of the country.

The senior official who spoke to The Times said Turkish officials believed the team used a bone saw to dismember his body.

The Guardian reported last week that officials were looking for a black van with diplomatic number plates that was seen departing the consulate roughly two hours after Khashoggi went in. They also believe Khashoggi’s Apple Watch could provide clues about what happened to him, though experts have cast doubt on that claim.

A Post report published last Thursday described several unnamed Turkish and US officials as saying the Turkish government told US officials it had audio and video recordings suggesting that a team of Saudis killed Khashoggi.

The newspaper quoted one official as saying the audio recording indicated that Khashoggi was “interrogated, tortured, and then murdered,” adding that both Khashoggi’s voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic could be heard on the recording.

The recording “lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered,” The Post’s source said.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Turkish officials shared with the US and Saudi Arabia details of an audio recording said to illustrate how Khashoggi was beaten, drugged, and ultimately killed in the Saudi consul general’s office minutes after entering the consulate.

The Journal described people familiar with the matter as saying the recording included a voice that could be heard urging the consul to leave the room, as well as a voice of a person Turkish officials identified as a forensic specialist urging people nearby to listen to music as he dismembered the body.

In a Times report on Wednesday, a senior Turkish official describedaudio recordings suggesting that Khashoggi’s fingers were cut off shortly after he arrived at the consul and that he was eventually beheaded.

What Trump has said about the Khashoggi case

US President Donald Trump initially expressed concern about the Khashoggi case, but he has shifted to defending Saudi leaders while exhibiting a reluctance to punish them.

On October 8, he told reporters that he was “concerned about” Khashoggi’s disappearance.

“I don’t like hearing about it. Hopefully that will sort itself out,”Trump said. “Right now nobody knows anything about it, but there’s some pretty bad stories going around. I do not like it.”

During an interview with “Fox & Friends” last Thursday, Trump saidthat “we’re probably getting closer than you might think” to finding out what happened to Khashoggi.

“We have investigators over there, and we’re working with Turkey, and frankly we’re working with Saudi Arabia,” Trump said. “We want to find out what happened. He went in, and it doesn’t look like he came out. It certainly doesn’t look like he’s around.”

There is reason to doubt the president’s claim that the US has investigators in Turkey. FBI guidelines say it can investigate in other countries only if they request assistance. Foreign Policy reported last Thursday that it seemed Turkey had so far not done that.

Trump added in the interview that US-Saudi relations were “excellent.”

In an interview with Fox News on October 10, the president seemed reluctant to guarantee repercussions against the Saudis — especiallyin terms of US arms sales to the country — if it turned out that they harmed Khashoggi.

“I think that would be hurting us,” he said of stopping arms sales to Saudi Arabia. “We have jobs. We have a lot of things happening in this country … Part of that is what we’re doing with our defense systems, and everybody is wanting them, and frankly I think that that would be a very, very tough pill to swallow for our country.”

During the interview, Trump said that it was “looking a little bit like” Saudi Arabia was responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance but that “we’re going to have to see.”

In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday, Trump said that “we would be very upset and angry” if it turned out the Saudis were involved in Khashoggi’s disappearance, adding that the Saudis “deny it every way you can imagine.”

The president also reiterated concerns about the economic impact of reducing arms sales to the Saudis.

“I tell you what I don’t want to do: Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon … I don’t want to hurt jobs. I don’t want to lose an order like that,” he said. “There are other ways of punishing, to use a word that’s a pretty harsh word, but it’s true.”

Trump on Wednesday said he’d contacted Turkish officials and requested audio and video related to the case, “if it exists.”

“I’m not sure yet that it exists,” Trump said. “Probably does. Possibly does.”

When asked whether he had sent the FBI to investigate, Trump said, “Why would I tell you?”

Trump also stressed the fact that Khashoggi was not a US citizen as he boasted about billions of dollars in planned US arms sales to the Saudis.

Vice President Mike Pence also tweeted about the case last week.

“Deeply troubled to hear reports about Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi. If true, this is a tragic day,” he said. “Violence against journalists across the globe is a threat to freedom of the press & human rights. The free world deserves answers.”

Khashoggi’s fiancée has called on Trump to do more

Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancée, urged Trump in an op-ed article for The Post, published on October 9, to “shed light” on his disappearance.

“At this time, I implore President Trump and first lady Melania Trump to help shed light on Jamal’s disappearance,” Cengiz wrote.

She added that she and Khashoggi “were in the middle of making wedding plans, life plans,” when he disappeared.

On October 10, Trump said that he had spoken with the Saudi government about Khashoggi and that he was working closely with the Turkish government to get to the bottom of what happened. He would not say whether he believed the Saudis were responsible for the journalist’s disappearance.

The president also said he invited Cengiz to the White House.

Cengiz wrote in an op-ed article for The Times published Saturday: “In recent days, I saw reports about President Trump wanting to invite me to the White House. If he makes a genuine contribution to the efforts to reveal what happened inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul that day, I will consider accepting his invitation.”

The Trump administration has had a close relationship with the Saudis, and US-Turkey relations have been strained in recent months over the imprisonment of an American pastor, though he was released on Friday.

Trump suggested ‘rogue killers’ could be behind Khashoggi’s disappearance

After a phone call with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, Trump on Monday suggested, without evidence, that “rogue killers” could be behind Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Trump said the king flatly denied any involvement.

“It sounded to me like maybe these could be rogue killers,” Trump said. “Who knows?”

On Tuesday, Trump escalated his defense of the Saudis, suggesting in an interview with the AP that the criticism leveled against the government was another instance of “guilty until proven innocent.”

“Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent,” he said. “I don’t like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh, and he was innocent all the way as far as I’m concerned.”

In an interview with Fox Business that aired Tuesday evening, Trump said it “would be bad” if it turned out that the Saudis were behind Khashoggi’s disappearance, but he emphasized the US-Saudi relationship.

“Saudi Arabia’s our partner, our ally against Iran,” Trump said. “They’ve been a great ally to me.”

Pompeo went to Saudi Arabia to discuss the case with the king

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in Riyadh on Tuesday morning to discuss the Khashoggi cause with King Salman.

A State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, told The Times that Pompeo “thanked the king for his commitment to supporting a thorough, transparent, and timely investigation of Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance.”

 Leah Millis/Reuters

Later in the day, Pompeo met with Prince Mohammed for roughly 35 to 40 minutes.

“We are strong and old allies,” the crown prince told reporters as he met with Pompeo. “We face our challenges together.”

After his meetings, Pompeo said the Saudi leadership “strongly denied any knowledge of what took place in their consulate in Istanbul.”

“We had direct and candid conversations,” Pompeo said. “I emphasized the importance of conducting a thorough, transparent, and timely investigation, and the Saudi leadership pledged to deliver precisely on that.”

The secretary of state said he believed there was a “serious commitment to determine all the facts and ensure accountability, including accountability for Saudi Arabia’s senior leaders or senior officials.”

Pompeo added: “We’re going to give them the space to complete the investigation of this incident.”

The US received a $100 million payment from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the same day Pompeo arrived in Riyadh to discuss Khashoggi’s disappearance. The timing of the payment raises questions, but the State Department said it had no connection to Pompeo’s visit.

The US intelligence community reportedly knew about a Saudi plot to capture Khashoggi

A Post report on October 10 said US intelligence intercepts showed that Prince Mohammed sought to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and detain him there.

The newspaper said the intercepts of Saudi officials discussing the plan were described by US officials familiar with the intelligence.

Under a directive signed in 2015, the US intelligence community has a “duty to warn” people — including those who are not US citizens — who it believes are at risk of being kidnapped, seriously hurt, or killed. This directive has become a central aspect of the conversation about the US’s response to Khashoggi’s disappearance.

The White House and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. A representative for the National Security Council declined to comment.

But a State Department spokesman, Robert Palladino, told reportersthat the US government did not have prior knowledge of a Saudi plot to capture or harm Khashoggi.

“Although I cannot comment on intelligence matters, I can say definitively the United States had no advanced knowledge of Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance,” he said.

Trump is under mounting pressure to address the situation more forcefully

Senators on both sides of the aisle have expressed serious concerns about Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Nearly two dozen senators sent a letter to Trump on October 10 invoking the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act of 2016.

The letter — written by Sens. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Bob Menendez, its ranking Democrat — gave the White House 120 days to “determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violation of internationally recognized human rights against an individual exercising freedom of expression.”

At the end of 120 days, the letter said, Trump is to report back to the committee on the investigation’s findings and how his administration plans to respond.

“We request that you make a determination on the imposition of sanctions pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act with respect to any foreign person responsible for such a violation related to Mr. Khashoggi,” the senators wrote. “Our expectation is that in making your determination you will consider any relevant information, including with respect to the highest ranking officials in the Government of Saudi Arabia.”

The letter paves the way for sanctions to be imposed on Saudi Arabia and puts pressure on Trump to investigate Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Speaking with reporters about the letter, Corker said, “It’s the forcing mechanism to ensure that we use all the resources available to get the bottom of this, and if in fact at the very highest levels of Saudi Arabia they have been involved in doing this, that appropriate steps will be taken to sanction them.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top Senate Republican, called for the crown prince to step away from the world stage, describing him as “toxic” in an appearance on “Fox & Friends” last Thursday morning.

The UN is calling for an investigation by Saudi Arabia into Khashoggi’s disappearance

Meanwhile, UN experts have called for an independent and international investigation into the case.

“We are concerned that the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi is directly linked to his criticism of Saudi policies in recent years,” they said in a statement on October 9. “We reiterate our repeated calls on the Saudi authorities to open the space for the exercise of fundamental rights, including the right to life and of expression and dissent.”

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