Cartoon of Sunday 21/10/2018 in CTXT
Jamal Khashoggi in the consulate of death
Journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October and never came out again, as far as is known, or in what state if any. His Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, waited for him for hours outside the building, where Khashoggi had gone to process the paperwork to get married.
As the days go by, the script of this story begins to take twists and turns, each one crazier than the last, to the point that it becomes difficult to establish a reliable chronology of what supposedly happened inside the embassy.
The first version is that he was tortured and the fingers of one hand were cut off, then his throat was slit, and finally he was hacked to death with a saw by a supposed forensic scientist, who had travelled to Istanbul as part of a commando of 15 Saudis. One Turkish media outlet, the local daily Yeni Safak, claims to have audio recordings that confirm this version, if they exist, no one has been able to listen to them so far.
It is even said that the slaughterer had asked for music to be played to make the cutting up of the journalist more pleasant. All this according to images leaked by Turkey showing these people entering the consulate on the day of Khashoggi's disappearance.
Some media are beginning to talk about this commando being made up of personnel from the Saudi monarchy's security services.
Cartoon of 22 October from Tjeerd Royaards (Netherlands)
Saudi Arabia went from playing the longui for days to acknowledging that Khashoggi had died in the consulate in a fist fight and that it does not know where his remains are, and announcing that some 18 Saudi nationals had been arrested and that it is investigating the matter.
The script explodes and we read everything, that he died in an interrogation that went wrong(according to CNN) as he was being kidnapped to be taken to Saudi Arabia. There are also images of a supposed body double of Khashoggi, or someone dressed as him, swarming around doing a rather shabby parade. There are also images of people at the embassy burning documents the day before the journalist's murder.
Dogu Perincek, leader of the Patriotic Party of Turkey, claims that pieces of the Saudi journalist's body had been found in a well inside the Saudi consulate compound in Istanbul. Nothing confirmed. So says the man, who is not a very reliable source either. The body is still missing.
Turkey insists that the murder was"monstrously planned" and I confess that I got lost a while ago among so many plots, I may even have got the order of the plots wrong as supposed evidence and accusations continue to emerge in what already seems like a runaway script based on the war of information saturation.
But the story promises to continue to offer new plots, according to Sky Newskhashoggi's remains were found today in the garden of the Saudi consul's residence. However, the Public Prosecutor's Office, consulted by the official Turkish channel TRT, denies that Khashoggi's body has been found and denies the photos that are circulating.
Istanbul policealso deny this and insist they are still searching for the body.
Cartoon of 15/09/2018 in CTXT
Here the debate, in addition to criticism of the government's passivity in this case, centres on the dilemma of whether continuing to sell cucumbers to Saudi Arabia is right or wrong. Angela Merkel decides to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia until the Khashoggi case is resolved and calls on her European partners to do the same.
Meanwhile, in Spain, the PSOE and the PP, with the abstention of Ciudadanos, vote against suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Susana Díaz is clear, she doesn't give a damn about work and all that.
"My unit of measurement is the United Nations and so far it has not said that arms cannot be sold to Saudi Arabia".
