Minister backs transfer of Khashoggi murder trial

BEIRUT — Turkey has moved another step closer to transferring the trial for the killing of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, a decision that would effectively end the last case that rights groups hoped would serve a measure of justice for a grisly crime that shocked the world.

Turkey’s justice minister, Bekir Bozdag, voiced his support Friday for the transfer requested by Saudi Arabia, which never recognized the legitimacy of the Turkish trial. Saudi leaders have said they consider their own trial, which wrapped up more than two years ago, the final word on the matter even though rights groups roundly dismissed it as a sham.

The final decision on the transfer will made by the court, probably during its next session this week.

Khashoggi’s killing in Istanbul in October 2018 exacerbated already strained ties between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and the end of the Turkish trial could facilitate recent efforts by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to improve relations with Saudi Arabia and its crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman.

On Thursday, the prosecutor in the Turkish trial recommended transferring it to Saudi Arabia, as the Saudis had requested. At about the same time he issued his recommendation, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a televised interview that the government was taking important steps to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.

“Everyone sees that there is stagnation in relations currently,” he said. “Steps are being taken to revive that, and in the upcoming period I can say that concrete steps will be taken.” Khashoggi was a prominent journalist who fell out with his government and moved to the United States, where he wrote columns published in the Washington Post that were critical of the Saudi crown prince and his plans to remake the kingdom. Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

In 2019, Saudi Arabia sentenced five men to death and three to prison terms over Khashoggi’s killing. The next year, the death sentences were changed to prison terms after one of Khashoggi’s adult sons pardoned the killers.