As everyone knows by now, Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and never walked out. The common wisdom tells he was murdered, and there appears to be some evidence in the form of vocal recordings. See Turks tell U.S. officials they have audio and video recordings that support conclusion Khashoggi was killed:
“The voice recording from inside the embassy lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered,” said one person with knowledge of the recording who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive intelligence.
“You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic,” this person said. “You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered.”
A second person briefed on the recording said men could be heard beating Khashoggi.
In the spy novels, sensitive areas are frequently swept for bugs. So if such a recording exists, how did it come about? WaPo is silent about the source of their information leading one to believe it came by way of a leak from a protected source.
Here's a conspiracy theory: a Laser Doppler vibrometer aimed at some flat surface through a window captured the sound either for the Turks or some other entity. And they sought to gain favor by leaking the information.
Here's another conspiracy theory: the noisy business aimed at the U.S. embassy in Cuba was an incompetent effort on the part of Cubans to use sophisticated spy equipment that was a little bit too sophisticated for their abilities.
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2:49 PM 10/12/2018
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