Khashoggi case: Turkish police raid villa in Istanbul

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Turkish police searched a remote villa in a coastal area southeast of Istanbul on Monday as part of the investigation into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month, officials said.

Authorities believe that one of the Saudi agents allegedly involved in the murder at the kingdom's Istanbul consulate, Mansour Othman Abahussain, called the villa's owner a day before the killing, the office of Istanbul's chief prosecutor said.

The owner of the property, a Saudi national named Mohammed Ahmed Alfaozan, had purchased the property near Yalova around three years ago.

The phone call was believed to be about the destruction or disappearance of the body parts, the prosecutor's office said.

The villa police searched in the Termal district in Yalova, Turkey, November 26, 2018. /VCG Photo

They had halted the search on Monday evening.

Authorities have previously carried out inspections at the Saudi consulate and the consul general's residence in Istanbul as part of an investigation into the killing of the journalist, a Washington Post columnist and a prominent critic of the Saudi government.

Ankara believes the journalist was killed and dismembered by a 15-member assassination squad sent from Riyadh.

Security officials carry out a search operation with a dog in a villa in Yalova, Turkey, November 26, 2018. /VCG Photo

Khashoggi's killing has strained Saudi Arabia's ties with the West and battered the image of its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia has insisted that Prince Mohammed had not been involved in the killing and that the murder was a "rogue operation" by intelligence officers.

After offering numerous contradictory explanations, Riyadh said Khashoggi had been killed and his body dismembered when "negotiations" to persuade him to return to Saudi Arabia failed.

(Top image: Turkish police carry out inspections at a villa in the northwestern province of Yalova in relation to the investigation into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, November 26, 2018. /VCG Photo)

(With inputs from Reuters)