Hatice Cengiz, fiancee of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, is seen during an interview in London on Monday [Dylan Martinez/Reuters]
“This is an incident that took place in a diplomatic mission … In such a situation the Saudi Arabian authorities are responsible for this… The Saudi Arabian authorities know how such a murder was carried out… They need to explain,” she said.
She also reiterated her disappointment with Donald Trump’s handling of the scandal, suggesting the obvious – that US business relations with Riyadh have heavily influenced Trump’s approach to the case.
“President Trump should help reveal the truth and ensure justice be served. He should not pave the way for a cover-up of my fiancée’s murder. Let’s not let money taint our conscience and compromise our values,” she told a memorial in London.
Cengiz said that she and the entire Turkish nation wish for those responsible to face justice, including the ones sitting at the top giving the orders.
“I believe that the Saudi regime knows where his body is … I want justice to be served. Not only for those who murdered my beloved Jamal, but for those who organized it and gave the order for it.”
She also emphasized her wish “the role of the political leadership in this brutal killing to be brought to light” and asked the international community to assist in holding “the perpetrators and their masters to account.”
“There should be no cover-up. Jamal was my beloved fiancée, but he was also a gentle human being, a loving man, a journalist and a true believer in democracy and freedom in the Arab world. Let’s demand justice for Jamal and stand up for his ideals,” she urged.
So far, Saudi Arabia has come out largely unscathed from the entire scandal. Germany stopped all weapon exports to the country. Furthermore, Germany, Austria and the European Parliament called for an EU embargo on weapons sales to the Kingdom.
French President Emmanuel Macro said that such a move would be populist “demagoguery.”
The Netherlands is lobbying for a new EU regime to sanction human rights abuses, regardless of where they happen.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said that Britain’s weapons exports to Saudi Arabia met national and EU arms export licensing rules. Thus, the UK will not undertake any actions.
Spain, meanwhile, is trying to go ahead with the sale of 400 bombs in order to protect a Saudi contract with a shipyard in the Andalusia region that would create 5,000 jobs.
It is apparent that stopping all arms sales to Saudi Arabia would hurt EU interests. One face-saving move for the European Union could be to sanction Saudi individuals accused of the Khashoggi murder and separate the issue from its close ties with the Saudi state.
The US undertook similar actions. It sanctioned 21 Saudi nationals, by revoking their visa or making it impossible for them to receive visas in the future. However, US Defense Secretary said that “We’ll continue to support the defence of the kingdom,” when he was asked whether the US would continue supporting the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen.
Turkey is still calling for justice, but it would not be surprising if it receives some concessions from the US and Kingdom to put the incident in the past. A possible Saudi concession would be helping Turkey establish a semblance of control on some Saudi-backed militant groups in Idlib, such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Generally, groups such as HTS receive funding from several sources so that they can maintain a relative “independence.”
On October 29th, the Sunday Express reported that UK intelligence allegedly knew of the plan to abduct and possibly murder Khashoggi. They reportedly warned the Kingdom’s intelligence services against it, but they were rejected. They undertook no further action.
On October 28th, BBC aired an interview with a friend of Khashoggi, Galip Dalay. He claimed that Khashoggi was attempting to find documentary evidence that Saudi Arabia used chemical weapons in Yemen.
This would have been of significance since the EU recently agreed on a mechanism to punish chemical weapons attacks by targeting people regardless of their nationality.
Israel, Saudi regime and ISIS are same terrorists. These are worst than animals because they decapitate and butcher the human body and then they claim that we do this for our defence.
Trump not doing anything against the Saudi’s for money? Nor the EU? What a shocker! If this woman actually believes that governments should be led by moral guidance she’s living in a fantasy world. Never going to happen. At best there is only enlightened self interest.
And you know what, I can’t fault Trump for placing billions of Saudi dollars and the continuation of the petro dollar over some dead journalist. Outrage over a dead journalist looks good on the news for the chattering classes, it doesn’t pay the bills for Trumps voters, and in the end Trumps voters are more interested in jobs, job security and low fuel prices then outrage over some dead foreign journalist.
Well said especially as this Hadice is just another headchopper bitch who is a hypocrite. Her uncle and his party have committed just as many dark crimes. The difference is that the Sauds have not exposed them yet. It will come out later.
It took Germany and Austria ,one hundred years to admit it was actively involved in and helped the Turks slaughter Christians just before modern Turkey came into the world.
Khashoggi’s family are supposedly not aware he had a fiance. It is hard to see why Khashoggi would go to the Consulate knowing what might await him, yet this woman was filmed at the Consulate barriers when Khashoggi went in. Was she a Turkish asset setting up Khashoggi for the chop (literally it turns out)?
She is the niece of a founder of Erdogans political party AKP – in Turkey that’s close to royalty. Therefore I strongly believe that Jamal as a friend of Erdogan, marrying into the AKP royal family, could have done so with a library card as identification. I strongly doubt he would have needed any papers, which where worth risking his limbs and life, because Turkey is Turkey, and a little baksheesh would have saved the day…
Poor girl. :(
Khassoggi trying to find chemical weapons in Yemen by the Sauds? Why ? Did he suddenly see the light? Did he suddenly wish to become a Humanitarian Progressive person? Bahaha. What a load of rubbish!
He was a wahabi headchopper whose only problem with the ruling Sauds was that he was not in the inner circle ANYMORE and he did not like Salman. Apart from that ,he was part and parcel of the Sauds and equally guilty of all the horrors that occurred in Syria.