At 1:15 pm on 2 October 2018, a 59-year-old Saudi journalist in a dark blazer walked through the door of Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He had come for a piece of paper, a certificate confirming his divorce, without which he could not marry Hatice Cengiz, the Turkish academic waiting for him on the pavement outside the consulate. He had handed her his two phones before entering the consulate. The CCTV camera above the entrance recorded him entering but no camera ever recorded him leaving the consulate. What followed was one of the most cold-blooded assassinations of a journalist the world had witnessed in a long time.
His name was Jamal Ahmad Hamza Khashoggi, and within a fortnight it would be the most discussed name in global politics. What followed was a gripping account of denials, leaked recordings, changing explanations, intelligence findings and sanctions that ultimately stopped short of the actual perpetrators.
