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Washington Post contributor feared dead in Turkey

On Tuesday, Khashoggi went inside the Saudi consulate to get a marriage document as his fiancee waited outside, but he never came out.
Credit: OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images
Protestors hold pictures of journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a demonstration in front of the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 5, 2018.

WASHINGTON -- A journalist's disappearance half a world away has become the talk of Washington. Jamal Khashoggi was a contributor to The Washington Post. Now, Turkish officials have said they think Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But so far, they have provided no evidence.

"If this is true, it's a monstrous crime," said Jason Rezaian. Also a reporter for The Post, he was jailed in Iran for a year and a half. He hopes Khashoggi is still alive, somewhere. A respected Saudi dissident, Khashoggi often criticized the Saudi royal family.

"Jamal would often express that he was concerned for his own safety doing this work," said Rezaian in a video posted Monday on The Post's website. "But his love of Saudi Arabia his homeland was so deep and it was so important to him."

RELATED: Turkey seeks answers from Saudi Arabia on missing journalist; Trump says he’s ‘concerned’

On Tuesday, Khashoggi went inside the Saudi consulate to get a marriage document as his fiancee waited outside. But Saudi officials insist they had nothing to do with the disappearance. They even took a TV crew on a tour of the building. Turkish authorities think Khashoggi never left.

"It's very unnerving," said House Speaker Paul Ryan at an event at the National Press Club on Monday. He urged both the Saudi and Turkish governments to investigate. "We just need to get the clear facts," he said.

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