Turkey Has Concrete Information on Disappearance of Saudi Dissident, Authorities Say

Turkish authorities have concrete information on the disappearance of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who has been missing for six days, a deputy chairman of Turkey's ruling AK Party said on Sunday.

Yasin Aktay told broadcaster CNN Turk that Khashoggi had not left the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which he had entered on Tuesday to obtain documents for a forthcoming marriage, in "normal ways". The case would not go unsolved, Aktay said.

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Late on Saturday, Turkish sources told Reuters that Turkish authorities believed Khashoggi had been killed inside the consulate last week, in what they described as the deliberate targeting of a prominent critic of the Gulf kingdom's rulers.

"The initial assessment of the Turkish police is that Mr. Khashoggi has been killed at the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. We believe that the murder was premeditated and the body was subsequently moved out of the consulate," a Turkish official told Reuters.

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The sources did not say how they believed the killing was carried out.

A source at the Saudi consulate denied that Khashoggi had been killed at the mission and said in a statement that the accusations were baseless.

The source said that a security team including Saudi investigators had arrived in Istanbul on Saturday to take part in the investigation into Khashoggi's disappearance.