Slain journo fiancée sez hit Saudi prince
The fiancée of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Thursday called for world leaders to cut ties with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman after a damning U.S. intelligence report concluded that he ordered the assassination.
The Biden administration slapped sanctions on several senior Saudi officials following the report’s release last week, but stopped short of directly targeting bin Salman for the 2018 murder. The response was slammed as insufficient by human rights activists.
Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, told Reuters that the report was a “huge and important step” but that people “in power need to take action.”
“That it was said there would be no sanctions against the person who gave the order for the crime to be committed created a strange dilemma in everyone’s minds,” Cengiz (photo) told the news outlet. “But this could change in the coming days.
“The process of seeking justice is a long process; sometimes it is not easy,” she said.
A team of assassins loyal to bin Salman killed the Washington Post journalist after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage, according to previously leaked CIA reports.
Khashoggi’s body was dismembered with a bone saw and his remains were never found. The journalist, who was 59 when he vanished, had been an ardant critic of the Saudi government. A 2019 United Nations report described his death as an “extrajudicial killing for which the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible.”
The Saudi government at first denied knowing anything about the journalist’s death, then later changed its tune several times until finally admitting the murder was premeditated. But the government maintains that bin Salman played no part in the murder
Bin Salman, who operates as Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler. His foreign ministry slammed the U.S. intelligence document as “negative, false and unacceptable.”
“The report contained inaccurate information and conclusions,” the ministry said in a statement.
At the same time, U.S. lawmakers urged the Biden administration to turn up the heat on the prince. America relies on the regional power in its efforts to contain Iran, and the two countries were enjoyed a cozy relationship during President Donald Trump’s administration.