The indignation over the disappearance of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has taken an interesting turn now that Donald Trump has promised to inflict ‘severe punishment’ on the Saudi government should it turn out that he was in fact tortured and killed in the Saudi embassy in Ankara – though not obviously to the point of cancelling US military contracts with the kingdom.
And the indignation is entirely justified. For agents of a foreign state to infringe the human rights of its subjects in another country is a calculated insult to the country in question quite apart from the unpleasantness of exhibiting abroad the behaviour visited on critics at home. Even if the original intention of the Saudis were to extradite this tiresome critic rather than to kill him, this episode stinks.
So, if that is all very wrong, where does that leave Turkey? The government of Recep Erdogan has for its part been no slouch in following its critics abroad and whisking them back home, to a fate that has never quite been made clear.
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