Khashoggi’s fiancee snubs US invite, son reaches US

ISTANBUL: The fiancee of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Friday said she did not accept an invitation from US President Donald Trump to visit the White House because she thought it was aimed at influencing public opinion in his own favour.

In her first television interview since the killing, Hatice Cengiz recounted the events leading up to their visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 where Khashoggi handed her his two mobile phones and went inside while she waited outside for him to emerge.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, disappeared after entering the consulate to obtain paperwork necessary for his upcoming marriage to Cengiz, a Turkish national. After weeks of denying knowledge of whereabouts, and changing its story a number of times, Riyadh has said his killing was premeditated.

“Trump invited me to the United States but I perceived it as a statement to win public favour,” Cengiz told broadcaster Haberturk. Khashoggi was concerned tensions would arise when he visited the consulate for the first time on September 28, but he was treated well at that visit, which appeared to reassure him, she said.

On Friday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan urged Saudi Arabia to disclose who ordered Khashoggi’s murder, as well as the location of his body, heightening international pressure on the kingdom to come clean on the case.

The journalist’s son Salah Khashoggi reached the US after leaving Saudi Arabia, taking advantage of the revocation of a travel ban on him.

State department spokesman Robert Palladino said Washington welcomes the decision to have Salah Khashoggi and his family leave Saudi Arabia. His US destination was not immediately known but his late father lived in the Washington area.

Palladino said US secretary of state Mike Pompeo had discussed Jamal Khashoggi’s son during his recent visit to Riyadh and “made it clear” to Saudi leaders that Washington wanted him free to leave the kingdom. “We are pleased that he is now able to do so,” Palladino said. Saudi media had showed Khashoggi’s son meeting on Tuesday with the crown prince, who reportedly expressed his condolences.