DUBAI, Oct 19: A complex man of contradictions, journalist Jamal Khashoggi went from being a Saudi royal family insider to an outspoken critic of the ultra-conservative kingdom's government. Now even Donald Trump fears he is dead.
Khashoggi comes from a prominent Saudi family with Turkish origins. His grandfather, Mohammed Khashoggi, was the personal doctor of Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdul Aziz al-Saud. His uncle was the notorious arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
A friend of a young Osama bin Laden; a Muslim Brotherhood sympathiser; an aide to the Saudi royal family; a critic of the kingdom's regime and a liberal -- such conflicting descriptions have all been ascribed to Khashoggi.
After graduating from Indiana State University in 1982, he began working for Saudi dailies, including the Saudi Gazette and Al-Sharq al-Awsat.
When he was sent to cover the conflict in Afghanistan, a picture of a young Khashoggi holding an assault rifle and dressed in Afghani clothing was widely disseminated. Khashoggi did not fight in the country, but sympathised with the Mujahideen in the 1980s war against the Soviet occupation, which was funded by the Saudis and the CIA.
He is known to have been drawn to the Muslim Brotherhood's policies seeking to erase the remnants of Western colonialism from the Arab world.
It was this shared vision that brought him closer to a young Saudi called Osama bin Laden, who went on to found Al-Qaeda which carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
As a young journalist, Khashoggi interviewed bin Laden several times, garnering international attention. But later in the 1990s he distanced himself from the man who called for violence against the West.
Born in the Saudi holy city of Medina on October 13, 1958, Khashoggi spent his youth studying Islamic ideology and embraced liberal ideas.
But Saudi authorities came to see Khashoggi as too progressive and he was forced to resign as editor-in-chief of the Saudi daily Al-Watan in 2003 after serving just 54 days.
Over the years, he maintained ambiguous ties with Saudi authorities, having held advisory positions in Riyadh and Washington, including to Prince Turki al-Faisal, who ran Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency for more than 20 years. When Faisal was appointed ambassador to Washington in 2005, Khashoggi went with him. -AFP
