Asli Pelit from VOA’s Turkish Service contributed to this report.
The killing of prominent Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi shook the world one year ago, when the public learned how a Saudi government team assassinated and dismembered him inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
Khashoggi had criticized Saudi Arabia’s leaders for their repeated violations of human rights, persecution of critics and aggressive regional policies, including their role in Yemen’s four-year-long civil war.
The CIA concluded, according to published reports, that Khashoggi’s murder was ordered by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, which led U.S. lawmakers to publicly condemn the country and try to halt U.S. weapon sales to the kingdom.
U.S. President Donald Trump defied members of his party to push through an $8.1 billion weapons sale, maintaining friendly relations with the kingdom which he cites as a bulwark against Iran’s influence. Trump insisted the U.S. couldn’t afford to give up huge arms sales to its Middle East ally.
“We may never know all the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi,” Trump said in November 2018. “As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!”
Khashoggi’s fiancée says many countries including the United States failed to do the right thing and hold Saudis leaders responsible.
“Controlling (vast) energy sources shouldn’t be enough to get away with murder,” Khashoggi’s fiancee, Turkish author Hatice Cengiz, said in an interview with VOA.
The verdict in Cengiz’s mind was clear. Perhaps under different circumstances, absent “huge oil and arms deals” between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi’s case would not be so easily dismissed at the highest level.
Instead, she was left to watch a Saudi court try to demonstrate that it is holding people accountable.
Eleven Saudi suspects would eventually stand trial in a Saudi Arabia courtroom. Five of them
Ten days after the release of the report, Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders