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Remembering Jamal Khashoggi: The murder in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey further worsened the already strained relationship between Ankara and Riyadh
Photo:
Emrah Gurel/AP
The case of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in 2018, caused horror around the world.
In Turkey, the Istanbul public prosecutor's office has now spoken out in favor of stopping the proceedings there.
The trial should instead be moved to Saudi Arabia, the prosecution demanded, according to reports from the Turkish news agencies DHA and Anadolu.
The reason given by the leading public prosecutor was that the process that started in July 2020 in Istanbul was standing still.
The court's orders in the case could not be carried out because the accused are foreign nationals, the prosecutor was quoted as saying.
26 suspects from Saudi Arabia have been charged – but all of them in absentia.
The 59-year-old government critic Khashoggi was murdered on October 2, 2018 in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
He had an appointment there to prepare for the wedding with his fiancée, a Turkish citizen.
According to official information from Turkey and the USA, a 15-man commando from Saudi Arabia was waiting in the representation, killed him, dismembered his body and made the remains disappear.
Approach between Ankara and Riyadh
The murder had soured the already tense relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Most recently, however, the two countries had come closer again.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blamed Riyadh for the journalist's death at the time, but without directly blaming Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who came under massive international pressure after the murder.
Earlier this year, however, Erdoğan announced his first visit to the kingdom since Khashoggi's murder - but the visit has not yet taken place.
In 2018, after weeks of denials, Riyadh finally admitted that Khashoggi had been killed “in a failed attempt to arrest him”.
Five death sentences were handed down in a trial in Saudi Arabia, but these were later commuted to prison terms.
The start of the proceedings in Turkey had, among other things, raised hopes for actual clarification among relatives.
The court's decision to drop the case is still pending.
asc/AFP/dpa
