Turkish justice decided on Thursday without surprise to return to Saudi Arabia the file of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi journalist murdered in October 2018 in the premises of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
“We have decided to transfer the case to Saudi Arabia,” said the judge of the Istanbul court where the trial in absentia of 26 Saudi defendants has been held since July 2020.
The suspense was very limited: the Turkish Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdag had given a positive opinion to the request of the prosecutor, who wished to “close and transfer the file” to Ryad.
The murder of Mr. Khashoggi, killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate, poisons relations between the two Sunni regional powers. But Turkey, in the grip of an economic crisis, has been seeking a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia for several months.
For one of Khashoggi’s fiancée’s lawyers, Me Gokmen Baspinar, “this decision to transfer the file goes against the law” and “constitutes a violation of Turkish sovereignty”.
“There are no prosecutions in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities have already closed the trial and decided to acquit many suspects,” he recalled, adding that he had filed “an appeal before the Ankara administrative court against the ministry’s decision”.
For another of the defenders, Me Ali Ceylan, this decision amounts to “throwing the lamb into the mouth of the wolf”.
The fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting for Jamal Khashoggi outside the Saudi Arabian consulate where he had come to pick up papers on the day of the murder, declined to comment.