Taha Ozhan & Madawi Al-Rasheed on Jamal Khashoggi

TAHA OZHAN: And today, the consul’s resident was supposed to be searched in early morning but they prevented it again. And at the end of the day, they went inside and the Turkish and the sources are telling us, are telling, actually, everybody, that they are very confident that they are going to prove he is killed inside the Saudi consulate.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: It’s really a gruesome story. And let me just turn to you, Professor Madawi al-Rasheed. You are a dissident and you are — have been stripped of your Saudi citizenship and here you are in London. Are you afraid now in the wake of what’s just happened? Could you ever imagine that this could have happened to somebody like Jamal Khashoggi who didn’t call himself a dissident?

MADAWI AL-RASHEED, VISITING PROFESSOR, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS: First of all, I see myself as an academic who write a critical history and commentary on social issues and political issues. In that respect, this is defined as a dissident in the Saudi context. I think through my knowledge of Saudi Arabia that the killing of Jamal Khashoggi would not have happened. I did not imagine that the Saudi regime would actually do this in a consulate. They may cause trouble for dissidents. And also, there had been historical cases when they actually kidnapped dissidents such as, for example, in 1979 there was a famous Saudi dissident called Nasser al-Saeed (ph). He was kidnapped from Lebanon. And the person who assisted in that kidnapping was the Saudi ambassador at the time, Ali Shah (ph). And now, it is an open secret. The man disappeared and we don’t know anything about him. His children are still alive, his wife, they don’t know where he is. But, to go and do a crime like this with the horrific details that we are hearing inside an embassy is unbelievable.

AMANPOUR: So —

AL-RASHEED: Things have gone too far.

AMANPOUR: We have to keep saying that the Saudis deny it and you’ve heard what President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have said. They seem to say, well, you know, President Trump was angry at the so-called guilty until proven innocent, the opposite of what most law cases are about. And Pompeo seem to convey just the Saudi side of the story. I just want to quickly ask you, because you’re sitting there in Turkey and you’re so close to the government. Are — is Turkey satisfied with the U.S. involvement in this and the U.S. — behind the investigation? What is Turkey’s view on the U.S., sort of, deportment in all of this?

OZHAN: I mean, I am not official anymore. But what I see is the expectation was more. And actually, there’s a fluctuation into Washington’s position. Actually, every two days it is changing. This rogue state elements came out. Today and other statement came out through the Trump.