Turkey on Thursday closed the judicial process for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and sent him to Saudi Arabia, a decision criticized by human rights organizations and which will be the subject of an appeal by the victim’s fiancee.
The journalist critical of the Saudi regime, who was 59 years old and was a contributor to the American newspaper The Washington Post, was murdered on October 2, 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was strangled and quartered.
The last hearing of the trial in absentia against 26 Saudis, which started in July 2020, lasted a few minutes and the Istanbul court judge announced the decision: “We have decided to transfer the case to Saudi Arabia”.
The decision was already expected. At the previous hearing, the prosecutor had requested the transfer on the grounds that the case “delays” because court orders cannot be enforced as the suspects are foreigners.”
And Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said last week that he would support the prosecution’s request.
With the need for investments to face the serious economic crisis, Turkey was in a hurry to conclude the matter and resume relations with Saudi Arabia, whose Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman was affected by the crime.
“Here we are not ruled by a family like in Saudi Arabia. We have a judicial system that responds to citizens’ complaints: in this way, we will file an appeal,” Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, declared before the court.
For her, the Turkish Prosecutor’s Office meets the “Saudi demands”. “We know very well that the authorities will do nothing. How can we imagine the assassins will investigate themselves?”, she questioned her.
One of Cengiz’s lawyers, Gokmen Baspinar, stated that “the decision to transfer the case is against the law and constitutes a violation of Turkish sovereignty.”
“There are no lawsuits in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities have already closed the case and decided to acquit several suspects,” said the lawyer.
– “Scary sign” –
Human rights organizations denounced the attempt to bury the court case against the 26 defendants, including two people close to the crown prince.
For Erol Önderoglu, representative of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Istanbul, the decision “sends an alarming signal about the respect that Turkey gives to freedom of the press”.
“The court agreed to transfer to Saudi Arabia like this, in one sentence, without even (warning) the lawyers about the rejection of their requests,” tweeted Milena Büyüm, Amnesty International’s representative in Turkey.
The organization’s secretary general, Agnes Callamard, investigated the murder in 2019 as the UN’s special rapporteur and warned in her report of “credible evidence” of Mohamed bin Salman’s links to the murder and his attempt to cover up the crime.
“Turkey is voluntarily and knowingly returning the case to the hands of those responsible,” he said, before the official announcement of the shelving of the case.
A report by the US intelligence service accused the Saudi crown prince of having “validated” the assassination, carried out by a command of agents from Saudi Arabia who later disposed of the body.
– Defrost –
After denying the murder, Riyadh finally admitted to the crime, but claimed it was committed by Saudi agents acting on their own.
Initially, five people were sentenced to death for the murder, but a Saudi court overturned the sentence and handed down up to 20 years in prison to eight accused, whose identities were not revealed in an opaque court case.
To Riyadh’s disappointment, Turkey went ahead with the case and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the time that the order for the assassination “came from the highest levels” of the Saudi government.
In the following years, albeit unofficially, Saudi Arabia tried to pressure Turkey’s economy with a boycott of imports.
Now, at a time of crisis that causes the devaluation of its currency, the soaring of inflation and a growing international isolation, with the reduction of foreign investments, Turkey is trying to get closer to other regional powers such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Israel or Saudi Arabia itself.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited Riyadh last year and Erdogan declared in January that he intended to travel to the kingdom.
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