ISTANBUL, June 24. (DPA/EP) –
The Turkish court that handled the case of the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashogi at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Istanbul has definitively dropped the case after sending it to a court in the Saudi kingdom in April, thus helping to unfreeze relations between Ankara and Riyadh.
As the DPA news agency has learned, the Turkish court made the decision on June 17, but it was not until this Friday that it informed Gokmen Baspinar, lawyer for Jashogi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish national.
In April, the Turkish judicial authorities decided to transfer to Saudi Arabia the trial in the absence of the 26 defendants for the murder and dismemberment of Khashogi, who after entering the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, was never heard from again.
The remains of the columnist for the newspaper ‘The Washington Post’ have not been found and the Turkish and Western intelligence services point out that the order to kill him could only come from the highest spheres of the Saudi kingdom.
The judicial process in Saudi Arabia concluded in September 2020 when, after the appeals process, eight people were sentenced to prison terms, thus reducing the death sentence handed down in December 2019 against five of them.
The decision has been made five days before the visit to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohamed bin Salmán. A “significant” moment, has valued the lawyer of the deceased journalist, who has announced that they plan to appeal the decision next week.
“The case will be taken to the European Court of Human Rights if appeals to Turkish courts fail,” Baspinar said.
The Turkish president frames this visit within his initiative to improve relations with Riyadh. It must be remembered that Erdogan visited Saudi Arabia in April, as part of a tour to promote Turkish trade in the region as a lifeline for a country where inflation has exceeded 70 percent, a figure that could seriously affect his aspirations for next year’s elections.
There is also a context of a change in the position of the Western community with respect to the Saudi kingdom, as evidenced by the official visit to Riyadh that the President of the United States, Joe Biden, plans for July, and in which he will also hold talks with the crown prince.
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