Turkey closed the court case for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Thursday and sent it to Saudi Arabia, a decision criticized by human rights organizations and appealed by the victim's fiancée.
The 59-year-old critical journalist, a contributor to the American newspaper The Washington Post, was killed on October 2, 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was strangled and later dismembered.
The last hearing of the absentee trial against 26 Saudis opened in July 2020 only lasted a few minutes before the Istanbul court judge announced his decision: “We have decided to transfer the case to Saudi Arabia.”
The outcome was expected. At the previous hearing, the prosecutor had requested this transfer on the grounds that the case “has been delayed” because the court orders cannot be executed since the suspects are foreigners.
And the Minister of Justice, Bekir Bozdag, indicated last week that he would give the green light to this request from the prosecution.
In need of investment in the midst of a serious economic crisis, Turkey was in a hurry to close this matter and resume its relations with Saudi Arabia, whose crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was dotted by this event.
“Here we are not governed by a family like in Saudi Arabia. We have a judicial system that responds to citizens' complaints: in this regard, we will appeal,” Khashoggi's fiancée Hatice Cengiz told the court.
For her, the Turkish prosecutor's office met the “Saudi demands”. “We know very well that the authorities will do nothing. How can we imagine that the murderers will investigate themselves?” , he said.
One of his lawyers, Gokmen Baspinar, said that “this decision to transfer the dossier is against the law” and “constitutes a violation of Turkish sovereignty”.
” There is no legal action in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities have already closed the process and decided to acquit numerous suspects,” said the lawyer.
- “Terrifying sign” -
Human rights organizations denounced this attempt to bury the judicial process against the 26 accused, two of whom were close to the crown prince.
For Erol Önderoglu, Reporters Without Borders representative in Istanbul, the decision “sends a frightening signal about the respect Turkey gives to press freedom.”
“The court has agreed to transfer Saudi Arabia like this, in one sentence, without even (warning) lawyers of the rejection of their petitions,” Milena Büyüm, Amnesty International's representative in Turkey, was outraged on Twitter.
The organization's secretary general, Agnes Callamard, had investigated the murder in 2019 as UN Special Rapporteur and warned in her report of “credible evidence” of Mohamed bin Salman's links to the murder and his attempted cover-up.
” Turkey will be voluntarily and consciously returning the case to those responsible,” he said before the closing of the trial was officially announced.
A US intelligence report accused the crown prince of having “validated” the murder, executed by a command of agents arrived from Saudi Arabia who later disposed of the body.
- Deshielo -
After denying the murder, Riyadh finally admitted that it had been committed, but by Saudi agents who acted on their own.
Initially, five people were sentenced to death for the murder, but a Saudi court overturned the sentence and ordered up to 20 years in prison for eight defendants whose identities were not revealed in an opaque judicial procedure.
To Riyadh's disappointment, Turkey went ahead with the case and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan then said that the assassination order “came from the highest levels” of the Saudi government.
In the following years, albeit unofficially, Saudi Arabia has tried to put pressure on the Turkish economy with a boycott of its imports.
Now, in the midst of a crisis that has sunk its currency and triggered inflation and growing international isolation that has reduced foreign investment, Turkey is trying to get closer to other regional powers such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Israel or Saudi Arabia itself.
Its foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, visited Riyadh last year and Erdogan said in January that he plans to travel to the kingdom.
(with information from AFP)
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