Hello and welcome to The Spectator podcast. I'm Lara Prendergast.

This week, the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi mysteriously disappeared at his country's consulate in Istanbul and is presumed dead.

The world is outraged, but why was he killed and what happens now? Closer to home in Ireland,

the Europhiles seem to reign supreme, but is there an argument for Ireland joining Britain

in leaving the EU? Meanwhile, three of our top public schools are giving up the common entrance exam.

So, should we lament the end of the eccentric emission test?

Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi is believed to have been murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

In this week's cover piece, John Bradley, who knew him, argues that Khashoggi got on the wrong

side of the Saudi ruling family and that they operate a bit like the mafia.

So, what does this all mean for Saudi Arabia's global reputation?

Bill Law, a journalist covering the Gulf State, joins me from Istanbul,

and I'm also joined by Akbar Shahid Ahmed from Washington, D.C.,

a half-post foreign reporter who focuses on the Middle East.

So, Bill, you also knew Jamal Khashoggi.

What can you tell us about him and his relationship

with the Saudi regime? Yes, I have. I met him first in 2002 in Jeda. He was then the deputy editor

and chief of Arab News. And at the time, I was interested in speaking with him because he knew

Osama bin Laden and had known him when

he was a young man and had interviewed subsequently interviewed him many times.

I was also interested because he had established himself as something of a rarity in Saudi

Arabia.

That was as a journalist who was pushing the limits in a very conservative, very repressive society, and he was pushing it as a journalist.

...