Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that Jamal Khashoggi's murder was planned days in advance. He claimed that three teams arrived from Saudi Arabia, some members went to a forest near the consulate and also removed hard drives from the surveillance system inside the consulate. Erdogan also claims to have an audio tape recording the last 7 minutes of Khashoggi's life which has been heard by CIA Director Gina Haspel three days back in a secret visit to Turkey. Jamal Khashoggi visited the consulate on "28 September to obtain a document certifying that he had divorced his ex-wife, so that he could marry his Turkish fiancee". He was received warmly and told to return on 2 October which gave time to the Saudis to arrange his murder. Khashoggi was seen entering the consulate at 2 PM on 2 October and hours later a man identified as Mustafa al-Madani was seen walking around in his clothes. The first mystery is that since all employees of Turkish origin were given a holiday on 2 October who recorded the video of Khashoggi's final minutes. It would have to be a Saudi national working at the consulate, in which case he is in for a very agonising end if he is found. Seems very unlikely. Khashoggi was apparently dismembered while still alive as part of his torture. On the audio tape the consul general is heard saying, "Do this outside. You're going to get me in trouble." Saudi Consul Mohammed al-Otaibi flew back to Saudi Arabia when Turkey announced that it was going to search his residence. Apparently Khashoggi's body parts were found in the home of the Saudi consul which would make him and the Saudi government a bunch of brain-dead idiots. Which brings us to the second and much bigger mystery -- what happened to Khashoggi's blood. An adult man has about 5 liters of blood in his body which is being constantly pumped by the heart. Which means blood is always under pressure, expressed medically in millimeters of mercury. 1 mm of mercury is equivalent to 13.6 mm of water. Khashoggi was 60 years old, so assuming a systolic blood pressure of 140 mm of mercury we get a pressure of 1903.3 mm, or 1.9 meters, of water, which is over 6 feet. If his blood pressure shot up to 200 mm of mercury because of the stress that would be 272 cm, or 2.72 meters of water. If they dismembered his body blood would have spurted out over walls, over all the men and would have soaked the carpet. Erdogan has been shouting about many things but has not mentioned blood even once. Is he bluffing? Was Khashoggi kidnapped and taken back to Saudi Arabia? The Saudis would be in a bind. They cannot say they have him because then there will be an outcry for his release. So they prevaricated and then admitted to his killing, hoping that once they apologised and appeared to investigate his disappearance the outcry will die down. Erdogan thinks he is too clever and so far seems to have the upper hand against the Saudis but he should beware. Memories are very long in the Middle East. There maybe a reckoning sometime.
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