ANKARA (Middle East Eye) – Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of murdered Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi, said on Thursday that she would appeal a Turkish court’s decision to hand to Saudi Arabia a case involving 26 suspects linked to his killing.
Turkey “is not ruled by a family like in Saudi Arabia. We have a justice system that addresses citizens’ grievances,” Cengiz, the plaintiff in the case, told journalists outside Istanbul’s main court.
“We will appeal the decision in line with our legal system”.
Earlier on Thursday, the Turkish judge had confirmed: “We decided to halt and hand over the case to Saudi Arabia.”
The ruling came a week after Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag approved a Turkish prosecutor’s request to hand the case over to Saudi Arabia.
The 59-year-old Washington Post columnist was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 in a gruesome murder that shocked the world.
Earlier, one of Cengiz’s lawyers said during the hearing that there were no grounds to pass the case to Saudi Arabia.
“We have already submitted a motion to stop the execution of the justice ministry’s memorandum to transfer the case to Saudi Arabia. And this court should wait for it,” said Gokmen Baspinar.
“There is no judicial cooperation deal between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia isn’t a party to any international treaties that Turkey has signed.
“The trial has already ended in Saudi Arabia. Therefore the trial must continue in Turkey.”
Defense lawyer Ali Ceylan told the court that there would not be a fair trial in Saudi Arabia.
“Let’s not entrust the lamb to the wolf,” he said, referring to a Turkish saying.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said back in December 2018 that Turkey would not hand over evidence to Riyadh because they could destroy it as he criticized the kingdom’s artificial accounts of how Khashoggi was murdered on October 2, 2018.
“They think the world is dumb. This nation isn’t dumb and it knows how to hold people accountable,” Erdogan said at the time.
A U.S. intelligence report released a year ago said MBS had approved the operation to kill Khashoggi.
The ruling comes as Turkey seeks to mend its relations with Saudi Arabia, with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visiting Riyadh last year to mend fences with the kingdom.
The murder and subsequent accusations strained ties between the two countries and led to an unofficial Saudi boycott of Turkish goods, which cut Ankara’s exports to Riyadh by 90 percent.