A Turkish court ruled Thursday to suspend the trial in absentia of 26 Saudis accused in the gruesome killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and for the case to be transferred to Saudi Arabia.
Kaghoggi, a United States resident who wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed on Oct. 2, 2018, at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He had gone into the consulate for an appointment to collect documents required for him to marry his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz. He never emerged from the building.
It also comes as Turkey, which is in a deep economic downturn, has been trying to repair its troubled relationship with Saudi Arabia and an array of other countries in its region. Some media reports have claimed that Riyadh has made improved relations conditional on Turkey dropping the case, which had inflamed tensions between two countries.
During Thursday's hearing, lawyers representing Cengiz asked the court not to move the proceedings to Saudi Arabia, the private DHA news agency reported. “It's a scandalous decision,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey director for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, asserting that the court had "rubber stamped" a political decision that would allow the Turkish government to repair its ties with Saudi Arabia.
At the time of the crime, Turkey apparently had the Saudi Consulate bugged and shared audio of the killing with the CIA, among others.
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