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The conflicting accounts appeared certain to deepen a rift between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both regional powers that have competed for influence in the region.

The killing, if confirmed, would mark a startling escalation of Saudi Arabia's effort to silence dissent. Under direction from the crown prince, Saudi authorities have carried out hundreds of arrests under the banner of national security, rounding up clerics, business executives and even women's rights advocates.

"If the reports of Jamal's murder are true, it is a monstrous and unfathomable act," Fred Hiatt, the director of The Post's editorial page, said in a statement. "Jamal was - or, as we hope, is - a committed, courageous journalist. He writes out of a sense of love for his country and deep faith in human dignity and freedom. He is respected in his country, in the Middle East and throughout the world. We have been enormously proud to publish his writings."

Khashoggi may have been considered especially dangerous by the Saudi leadership, analysts said. His criticisms of the royal family and its vast powers were delivered from his self-imposed exile in the United States and could not be dismissed as the complaints of a longtime dissident.

Rather, he has long been a pillar of the Saudi establishment who was close to its ruling circles for decades, had worked as an editor at Saudi news outlets and had been an adviser to a former Saudi intelligence chief.

Khashoggi first visited the consulate on Sept. 28 to obtain a document related to his upcoming wedding, according to his fiancee and friends. He returned to the consulate Tuesday, at about 1:30 p.m., concerned that he might not be allowed to leave, according to his fiance, Hatice Cengiz.

Khashoggi left his phone with her, along with instructions that she should call a member of Turkey's governing party if he did not emerge. After waiting more than four hours, Cengiz called the police, she said.

The episode was made more confounding by the thicket of security cameras around the consulate, monitoring its entrances and perched on the walls of villas nearby. But neither government has released any video.

Yasin Aktay, a former MP for Turkey's ruling AK (Justice and Development) party and the man Khashoggi told his fiancee to call if he did not emerge from the consulate, said Turkish authorities had "concrete information" regarding the matter.

Speaking to CNN Turk on Sunday, Aktay, an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said:

"Khashoggi discussed to go there or not with his fiancee beforehand. Our security officials are investigating the issue in every detail. We have some concrete information, it won't be an unresolved crime. We could determine his entrance but not any exit. That's confirmed. We asked them [the Saudis], they say 'he left,' but there is no such thing on the camera footage. That's underestimating Turkey. They are wrong if they think Turkey is as it was in the 90s. The consulate should make a clear statement."

[Of the 15 Saudi nationals:] Their diplomatic bags could not be opened, a security source told MEE, but Turkish intelligence was sure that Khashoggi's remains were not in them.

Speaking to MEE, Basheer Nafi, the Palestinian thinker and writer who knows Khashoggi, said: "I've seen hundreds and thousands of Saudis in my life. I've never seen a man more gentle and more decent than him ... He doesn't deserve to be treated like this at all."

Bruce Reidel, a former CIA analyst and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institute, said:

"I'm not surprised. The crown prince does not tolerate criticism. And he knows [US President Donald] Trump won't care. Perhaps some of MBS's naive boosters in the West will finally see he is no revolutionary or reformer, but the president has his back."

Speaking to MEE on Sunday, Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch, called the reported killing of Khashoggi a "shocking act" that is a part of a "pattern of unlawful abductions" by the Saudi government.

"The message that the crown prince is trying to send to people who think independently, any Saudi Arabian who thinks independently, is that: 'We are going to find you. We're going to find you inside our country. We're going to find you outside our country. No one can stop us.' That's a deliberate effort to make Saudis feel afraid."

Khashoggi is considered a Saudi nationalist, and before leaving Saudi Arabia in September 2017 he was seen as close to the royal court.

Friction between him and the kingdom's rulers began to emerge after comments at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, warning that Saudi Arabia should be "rightfully nervous about a Trump presidency".

Authorities soon after informed him that he was banned from writing and tweeting. Worried by the actions, Khashoggi decided to leave the country. Since then, he has primarily been living in the US capital, writing for the Washington Post. His columns include criticism of Saudi Arabia's policies towards Qatar and Canada, the war in Yemen, and a crackdown on the media and activists.

Khashoggi's fiance tweeted in Arabic late on Saturday: "Jamal was not killed, and I don't believe that he was killed."

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