As Ankara strives to improve ties with Riyadh, Turkey’s justice minister indicated on Friday that his government would consider a request to transfer a trial for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia.
Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, and rights groups slammed the action, saying Saudi Arabia couldn’t be trusted to hold a fair trial.
Khashoggi’s assassination at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul four years ago made international headlines and strained relations between the two regional giants, leading to an unofficial Saudi boycott of Turkish goods, which has reduced Ankara’s exports to Riyadh by 90 percent.
On Thursday, a Turkish prosecutor called for the in absentia trial of 26 Saudi suspects in Istanbul to be suspended and the suspects sent to Saudi authorities, who requested the transfer in response to a letter from the Turkish court.
The court has requested the Justice Ministry’s position on the matter and will rule on it at its next hearing on April 7.
Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard, who carried out a UN-led investigation that concluded Saudi officials who ‘planned and perpetrated’ the massacre, condemned the prosecutor’s plea as ‘spineless’.
As the defendants were foreign citizens, the arrest orders could not be carried out, and their statements could not be obtained, the case was put on hold or suspended, according to the prosecutor.
On Friday, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag stated, ‘As the ministry, we will send a favourable opinion there about the transfer of the case,’ adding that Riyadh had requested the transfer.
Bozdag told reporters that if the defendants are convicted in Saudi Arabia, the Turkish court will dismiss the case, but if they are acquitted in the kingdom, the Turkish court may resume the trial.
Saudi Arabia sentenced eight people to prison for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2020, with sentences ranging from seven to twenty years. In what rights groups called a sham trial, none of the accused were named.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had approved the plan to kill or capture Khashoggi, according to a US intelligence report revealed a year ago. The Saudi government denied his involvement and dismissed the findings of the investigation.
Turkish officials believe that Jamal Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the crown prince, was assassinated and his body was dismembered in a Saudi government operation directed at the ‘highest levels,’ according to President Tayyip Erdogan.
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