The mystery cloaking the disappearance of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey continues to grip the world, with world leaders now calling for an immediate explanation of his whereabouts amid growing fears that he may have been murdered.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, told reporters in Lisbon that the EU wants “a full-out investigation and full transparency from Saudi authorities on what happened.” The United Nations has weighed in with similar appeals and has called for an independent international investigation of the affair.

President Donald Trump broke his silence yesterday, some five days after the 59-year-old entered the Saudi Arabian consulate building in Istanbul to secure documents needed to marry his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, a rare Turkish expert on Oman, never to be heard from again. Trump said, “I don’t like hearing about it … but there’s some pretty bad stories going around. I do not like it," Trump said. He was referring to allegations that Khashoggi was murdered on the consulate premises by a team of Saudi hit men who arrived in two separate planes that were recorded as landing in Istanbul’s Ataturk airport the day he vanished. Turkish officials have hinted that Khashoggi may have been dismembered and then spirited out of the building in a black van.

The Turkish authorities are due to launch an extensive forensic search of the building, which a well-informed source told Al-Monitor on condition of strict anonymity “will be treated like a crime scene” with “sniffer dogs, the whole lot.” Saudi Arabia has described the claims leaked by Turkish officials that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate as “baseless.”