Khashoggi probe team waits for Saudi reply

NEW YORK, Jan 27 (Al Jazeera): Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur on executions, says she had not yet received a reply from Saudi authorities.

A United Nations human rights investigator leading an international inquiry into the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said on Saturday she requested access to Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, and to visit the kingdom.

Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur on executions, who begins a week-long mission to Turkey at government invitation on Monday, said she had not yet received a reply from Saudi authorities.

On Thursday, she said the three-member legal and forensic panel would seek to establish "states' and individuals' responsibilities" for the killing.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist living in the United States, was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 where he had gone to collect documents for his planned wedding.

US intelligence agencies believe Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered an operation to kill Khashoggi, who was a critic, and say his body was dismembered and removed to a location still publicly unknown.

Riyadh denies the crown prince had any involvement in the murder.

"I have requested access to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and a meeting with the ambassador of the Kingdom of Saud Arabia in Turkey," Callamard said in an email to Reuters news agency.