Turkish villa searched by police belongs to close MBS associate, says report

One of the villas searched by Turkish police for the remains of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi belonged to a friend of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), reports said on Tuesday.

As details from the investigation emerge, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said that MBS asked to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the G-20 meeting to be held in Argentina later this week.

At the moment, there is no reason not to meet with the crown prince

- Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu

"Yes, he has asked Erdogan on the phone, whether they could meet in Buenos Aires. Erdogan's answer was 'Let's see'," Cavusoglu told Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

"At the moment, there is no reason not to meet with the crown prince," Cavusoglu said.

On Monday, crime scene investigators using sniffer dogs and drones searched a Saudi businessman's residence and an adjacent villa during a 10-hour probe in the northwestern province of Yalova.

Officers inspected three wells in the villas' gardens, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet said, while the DHA news agency reported there were claims the buildings were illegal.

The villa belongs to Mohammed Ahmed al-Fawzan after he bought the land on which it is built on in 2014, the news agency reported.

Hurriyet described Fawzan as a "close friend" of Mohammed bin Salman.

The second villa belonged to a business named Omary Tourism Gida, DHA reported.

Khashoggi, a contributor to Middle East Eye and the Washington Post, was allegedly strangled and dismembered by a team of 15 Saudis inside Riyadh's Istanbul consulate on 2 October.

The Saudi journalist and critic of MBS was murdered shortly after entering the building hoping to obtain documents he needed to remarry.

Cavusoglu told Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday that he had listened to a "disgusting" tape of the killing. "I listened to it. He was killed within seven minutes. It was a deliberate murder," he said.

Search for Khashoggi's body

Khashoggi's body has not been found, despite extensive police searches in the consulate, the consul-general's residence and a forest in Istanbul.

There have been reports that Khashoggi's body was cut up and dissolved in acid, and that acid traces had been found in the consulate's drains.

The Istanbul public prosecutor in charge of the investigation said on Monday that one of the Saudi suspects, Mansour Othman M Abahussain, spoke to Fawzan on the phone a day before Khashoggi's killing.

Fawzan was not in Turkey at the time but the prosecutor believed the phone call was intended to find a way to remove or hide Khashoggi's body after its dismemberment.

Turkish officials have not said Fawzan is in any way linked to the murder and have not released any information about what, if anything, was found at the two villas.

After more than two weeks of denial, Riyadh admitted on 19 October that Khashoggi, 59, was killed in what it described as a rogue operation, denying claims the crown prince ordered his death.

A long-time royal insider, Khashoggi had recently written critical editorials of the kingdom and once compared the crown prince to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Erdogan has said the murder was ordered by the highest levels of the Saudi government, but insisted King Salman was not to blame.