ANKARA (Middle East Eye) – Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz on Wednesday called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a “murderer”, as she slammed his first visit to Ankara since the Saudi journalist’s assassination at the hands of Saudi agents in Istanbul in 2018.
“His visit to our country doesn’t change the fact that he is responsible for a murder,” Cengiz said in a series of tweets.
“The political legitimacy he earns through the visits he makes to a different country every day doesn’t change the fact that he is a murderer.”
The crown prince was due to visit Ankara later Wednesday, where he will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and is expected to discuss bilateral areas of cooperation such as investment, tourism and easing of a veiled embargo against Turkish goods since the assassination.
The crown prince kicked off his regional tour on Monday with visits to Cairo and Amman.
The 59-year-old Washington Post columnist was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 in a gruesome murder that shocked the world.
In April, a Turkish court transferred the Khashoggi murder case to Saudi Arabia, which involved 26 suspects linked to the assassination.
The case transfer opened the way for a rapprochement between Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Erdogan visited the kingdom soon after the court’s decision and met the crown prince, who the CIA says had given the order to kill Khashoggi.
Cengiz said in her statement that the international order left her alone in her fight for justice.
“None of the diplomatic engagements would legitimize the unfairness and the injustice,” she said. “We have to continue to seek justice until every effort is futile. Ultimately, as an individual who puts her faith in eternal justice, I believe no crime goes unpunished.”
An Istanbul judge, Nimet Demir, who opposed the transfer of Khashoggi’s murder case to Saudi Arabia, was relocated on Sunday to work in southern Turkey, usually a workplace for junior judges.
Demir, the chief judge from Istanbul’s 12th High Criminal Court, said that she petitioned for her retirement after it was made clear to her that she was not going to be allowed to take leave.
“I was trying to uphold democracy, human rights and freedoms. This is something that would cause special attention under autocratic systems. And I’m a victim,” she told the Turkish media.
However, there remains a second lawsuit in a U.S. federal court that was filed by Cengiz and the U.S.-based advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which Khashoggi established and ran before his death.
The judge in the lawsuit in Washington DC has yet to rule whether the court has jurisdiction. If he does, the lawsuit could open what one source described as a “Pandora’s box” of information, with the court potentially demanding that the crown prince give evidence in person.