Jamal Khashoggi: 15 facts about the journalist

Jamal Khashoggi is the name you are hearing the past days because he and other journalists were announced by Time magazine «Person of the year».

Τhe journalist’s photograph is on the cover of Time magazine and in his name a lot of journalists posted the cover on social media to show the world that they are going through rough times and that a journalist’s job is not easy.  Unfortunately,Jamal Khashoggi lost his life in Istanbul and this death shocked journalists all over the world.

These are some facts about the journalist:

1. Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi was born on 13 October 1958.
2. He was born in Medina ,Saudi Arabia.
3. His grandfather, Muhammad Khashoggi, who was of Turkish origin, married a Saudi Arabian woman and was personal physician to King Abdulaziz Al Saud, the founder of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
4. He was the first cousin of Dodi Fayed, who was dating Diana, Princess of Wales, when the two were killed in a car crash in Paris.
5. He received his elementary and secondary education in Saudi Arabia and obtained a BBA degree from Indiana State University in the United States in 1982.
6. Jamal started his career as a regional manager for Tihama Bookstores from 1983 to 1984 and later on he worked as a correspondent for the Saudi Gazette and as an assistant manager for Okaz from 1985 to 1987.
7. From 1991 to 1999, he was a foreign correspondent in such countries as Afghanistan, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan, and in the Middle East.
8. On the 3^rd of April 2018, he wote in a Post column that Saudi Arabia “should return to its pre-1979 climate, when the government restricted hard-line Wahhabi traditions. Women today should have the same rights as men. And all citizens should have the right to speak their minds without fear of imprisonment.
9. He had an acquaintance with Osama bin Laden in the 1980s and 1990s in Afghanistan while Bin Laden was championing his jihad against the Soviets and he interviewed him several times.
10. Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 in order to obtain documents related to his planned marriage. No surveillance cameras recorded him exiting the consulate and he was declared a missing person amid news reports claiming that he had been dismembered inside the consulate.
11. An inspection of the consulate, by both Saudi Arabian and Turkish officials, took place on 15 October. Turkish officials found evidence of “tampering” during the inspection and evidence that supported the belief that Khashoggi had been killed.
12. Initially, the Saudi Arabian government denied the death and claimed that Khashoggi had left the consulate alive[80] but 18 days later said that he had died inside during a fistfight. This was contradicted on 25 October when Saudi Arabia’s attorney general stated that the murder was premeditated.
13. On 16 November 2018 The Washington Post and other news media reported that the CIA had concluded Mohammed bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi’s assassination.
14. He was described as an observant Muslim.
15. He was named as one of the Time Person of the Year for 2018 on December, 2018.