Five years of impunity after the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi

2023-10-02 17:03:34

His story made headlines around the world for months: Jamal Khashoggione normal morning at the beginning of October, entered the consulate of his country, Saudi Arabiain Istanbul in search of some necessary documents to marry, a few weeks later, his Turkish fiancée.

Everything had to be very fast, and it was. To the journalist and collaborator of the ‘The Washington Post‘ A team of men sent from Riad to apprehend him. Just as he entered they knocked him out, killed him, dismembered him and – it is still not known how – they got rid of his corpse.

The plan was so meticulous that a man from the Saudi team dressed up as Khashoggi and went for a walk throughout Istanbul with the idea of ​​misleading the people. turkish authorities and security cameras. While this was happening, the journalist’s fiancee waited and despaired in front of the consulate. This whole scene happened exactly five years ago. Nobody – less the men who were sent to Istanbul to assassinate Khashoggi, who were used as scapegoats—has paid for it.

“His body was dismembered and destroyed, and even though the world learned the truth it has not been imparted justice… but God will end up giving his“, tweeted this Monday the journalist’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who spent the first years after Khashoggi’s death trying to put together a legal process in Türkiye to prosecute the real perpetrators, who According to the US and the UN special reporter for the case, they were the highest levels of Saudi power.. Above all a man: the crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman.

Initially, Türkiye, confronted with Riyadh, supported Cengiz. But time passed, and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with a rampant economic crisis, needed Saudi money. Cengiz was left alone.

Immunity and abandonment

“I was very direct with him when I talked to him about the subject. I was very clear. I told him that an American president cannot remain silent on an issue of human rights, that I’m not like that,” Joe Biden explained a year ago after meeting with Bin Salmán. “He basically answered me that he was not responsible for what happened. I indicated to him that he believed that was not true,” Biden continued.

In 2022, another complaint against Bin Salmán was filed in USA. Shortly after that meeting between Biden and Bin Salmán, however, the White House announced that the Saudi could not be tried on American soil because his position of head of state from a foreign country granted him immunity from prosecution.

“If the US does not take the criminals brought to justice, who is going to do it? Biden betrayed his own words. He always talks about democracy, human rights, but they are only slogans; “There is no action behind them,” Cengiz said then. This decision is a point of no return for the entire humanity“.

Five years later, Khashoggi’s murder has been forgotten by the world, which has turned the page. For Cengiz, however, the questions remain: “I need to know the truth. I still don’t know what exactly happened to him, why did they kill him. And I’m not going to rest until I know everything.”