ANKARA (Dispatches) – Turkey has arrested two intelligence operatives who confessed to spying on Arab nationals for the United Arab Emirates, and it is probing whether the arrival in Turkey of one of them was related to Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, a senior Turkish official said on Friday.
One of the two men arrived in Turkey in October 2018, days after Khashoggi was murdered inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, the official said, adding the other arrived to help his colleague with the workload.
"We are investigating whether the primary individual’s arrival in Turkey was related to the Jamal Khashoggi murder,” said the official, adding the person has been monitored for the past six months.
"It is possible that there was an attempt to collect information about Arabs, including political dissidents, living in Turkey.”
The arrests were made in Istanbul on Monday as part of a counter-intelligence investigation. Turkish officials seized an encrypted computer located in a hidden compartment at what the official told Reuters was the spy ring’s base.
The official, who requested anonymity, said statements by the detained men suggested their intelligence operation targeted political exiles and students.
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in the Saudi consulate on Oct. 2, provoking an international outcry.
The CIA and some Western countries believe the Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, ordered the killing. The Saudi public prosecutor has indicted 11 unidentified suspects, including five who could face the death penalty on charges of ordering and committing the crime.
Meanwhile, Sputnik France has obtained information that it is Qatar that is pushing for a Paris street to be named after Jamal Khashoggi. Intelligence Online reported this on the evening of 17 April and it is possible that the issue could soon be reported in Libération.
On 18 April, Romain Caillet, an expert on Islam, tweeted about certain actions in this direction by Jean-Pierre Duthion, a lobbyist close to the Qatari government.
Asked by Sputnik, Jean-Pierre Duthion declined to comment on the issue. If proven, this lobbying could be considered part of the war for influence between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, especially since the embargo imposed on Doha by Riyadh in June 2017. Romain Caillet considers this assumption quite credible:
"There is intense lobbying on both sides […] as part of a struggle for influence between the (Persian) Gulf countries and everyone is trying either to find some compromising information on their opponent or to expose their failures. […] Qatar is defending itself and focusing on Saudi Arabia's failures. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are doing the same thing with Qatar […] There is a king of a game going on here — who can discredit the opponent more", Romain Caillet pointed out.
 
Candles, lit by activists, protesting the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, are placed outside Saudi Arabia’s consulate, in Istanbul.