WASHINGTON (NBC News) – Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s widow has asked the U.S. government and United Nations to intervene and help her recover her husband’s electronic devices from the Turkish government so she can take legal action before the statute of limitations runs out later this year, according to letters, papers and other details about her efforts shared with NBC News.
It’s been more than a year since Hanan Elatr Khashoggi first requested the laptop, tablet and two cellphones of the Washington Post columnist who was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, and she’s now hoping to increase pressure on Turkey to comply by getting help from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The letters, sent in November and January say that she believes the devices “will reveal previously undisclosed details about my husband’s murder that are critical to knowing the full truth.”
“I have the right to receive all of his possessions, particularly now as I am embarking on legal action in the United States against all parties responsible for my husband’s murder,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi wrote in both letters, naming NSO Group, a Zionist cyber-espionage firm, and the Saudi and Emirati governments as planned targets of future lawsuits.
She said Turkey recovered the devices shortly after her husband’s death and wrote in her letters that her personal appeals to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the phones, laptop and tablet “have not been honored.”
Erdogan’s office and the Turkish Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. The Turkish Embassy sent Hanan Elatr Khashoggi’s attorney a letter in December 2021 that suggested she send “her request to the respective Turkish courts through appropriate legal channels.”
Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, who is an Emirati, said she cannot pursue legal action in Turkey because she is in the U.S. under political asylum, does not have a passport and does not have the necessary finances.
Jamal Khashoggi’s devices are “so important and so vital,” she said in an interview — a point emphasized by her lawyer Randa Fahmy — to knowing what led to Jamal Khashoggi’s death and holding all responsible parties to account.