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Khashoggi murder: Turkish absentia trial of 20 Saudis opens Jamal Khashoggi murder: Turkey puts 20 Saudis on trial in absentia
(about 7 hours later)
Twenty Saudi nationals have gone on trial in absentia in Turkey over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Twenty Saudi nationals have gone on trial in absentia in Turkey for the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
He was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed by a team of Saudi agents inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.
Those being tried include two former top aides to Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The defendants include two former aides to the prince, who denies involvement.
Khashoggi was a vocal critic of the prince. Saudi Arabia carried out a separate trial over the killing that was heavily criticised as incomplete. Saudi Arabia, which rejected Turkey's extradition request, convicted eight people over the murder last year.
The trial in Istanbul follows an international outcry over the murder, which tarnished the prince's reputation. Five were sentenced to death for directly participating in the killing, while three others were handed prison sentences for covering up the crime.
Turkish prosecutors accuse the former deputy head of Saudi intelligence, Ahmed al-Asiri, and the royal court's media adviser Saud al-Qahtani of having led the operation and instructed a Saudi hit team. The Saudi trial was dismissed as "the antithesis of justice" by a UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, who concluded that Khashoggi was "the victim of a deliberate, premeditated execution" for which the Saudi state was responsible.
The other 18 defendants are accused of having suffocated Khashoggi, whose remains have not been found. Turkish officials say his body was dismembered and removed to an unknown site. What happened at the trial?
The journalist, who was resident in the US, had entered the consulate seeking papers for his impending wedding. Khashoggi's Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, was allowed to attend the hearing.
His fiancee Hatice Cengiz is attending the trial alongside the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, who has directly linked the crown prince to the killing, AFP news agency reports. She later told journalists gathered outside the courtroom that she found the process emotionally and spiritually debilitating.
The Saudi authorities initially denied any involvement in the case, but later called it a "rogue operation". Ms Cengiz expressed confidence in the Turkish judicial system and declared: "Our search for justice will continue in Turkey as well as in everywhere we can."
In December a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced five people to death and three to jail for Khashoggi's killing, but the trial was secretive and the defendants were not named. Ms Callamard, who was also at the hearing, said: "We have not moved the killing of Jamal Khashoggi into a formal setting that the international community can recognise, because the trial in Saudi Arabia could not be given credibility and legitimacy."
The CIA and some Western governments believe the murder was ordered by Crown Prince Salman - something he denies. The crown prince is de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. "Here for the first time, we have the hitmen being indicted and we have a number of those have commissioned the crime," she added.
UN special rapporteur Callamard says Khashoggi was "the victim of a deliberate, premeditated execution, an extrajudicial killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible". How did Jamal Khashoggi die?
At the time of his death the 59-year-old worked for the Washington Post. The 59-year-old journalist, who went into self-imposed exile in the US in 2017, was last seen entering the Saudi consulate on 2 October 2018 to obtain papers he needed to marry Ms Cengiz.
The prosecutors have charged Ahmed al-Asiri and Saud al-Qahtani with "instigating the deliberate and monstrous killing, causing torment". After listening to purported audio recordings of conversations inside the consulate made by Turkish intelligence, Ms Callamard concluded that Khashoggi was "brutally slain" that day.
Hatice Cengiz is hoping that the trial will reveal significant new evidence and finally reveal what happened to Khashoggi's remains. The Saudi government said the journalist was killed in a "rogue operation" by a team of agents.
She was waiting for Khashoggi outside the consulate on the day he was murdered. Saudi Arabia's public prosecution said the murder was ordered by the head of a "negotiations team" sent to Istanbul to bring Khashoggi back to the kingdom "by means of persuasion" or, if that failed, "by force".
The public prosecution concluded that Khashoggi was forcibly restrained after a struggle and injected with a large amount of a drug, resulting in an overdose that led to his death. His body was then dismembered and handed over to a local "collaborator" outside the consulate. The remains were never found.
Turkey's public prosecution concluded that Khashoggi was suffocated almost as soon as he entered the consulate, and that his body was destroyed.
Who are the defendants?
Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency cited the indictment filed by Turkish prosecutors as accusing Saud al-Qahtani, a former senior adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed, and Ahmad Asiri, Saudi Arabia's former deputy intelligence chief, of "instigating a premeditated murder with the intent of [causing] torment through fiendish instinct".
The 18 other defendants are charged with carrying out "a premeditated murder with the intent of [causing] torment through fiendish instincts".
The eight individuals who were convicted of Khashoggi's murder in Saudi Arabia have never been identified by the Saudi authorities.
According to interviews conducted by Ms Callamard, their lawyers argued at the Saudi trial that they were state employees and could not object to the orders of their superiors, and that Mr Asiri insisted that he never authorised the use of force to bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi public prosecution said Mr Asiri was tried but acquitted due to insufficient evidence, and that Saud al-Qahtani was investigated but not charged.
Khashoggi's son Salah, who lives in Saudi Arabia, said in May that he and his brothers were "pardoning those who killed our father, seeking reward from God almighty". That effectively granted them a formal reprieve under Saudi law.