Turkish prosecutors have charged 20 suspects including two former top aides to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the 2018 murder of Riyadh critic Jamal Khashoggi, AFP reported.
Prosecutors accuse Saudi Arabia’s deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri and the royal court’s media czar Saud al-Qahtani of leading the operation against Khashoggi and giving orders to a Saudi hit team.
Khashoggi, 59, a commentator who wrote for The Washington Post, was killed after he entered the Saudi consulate general in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, to obtain paperwork for his wedding to his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz.
The Saudi insider-turned-critic was strangled and his body cut into pieces by a 15-man Saudi squad inside the consulate, according to Turkish officials.
His remains have never been found despite repeated calls by Turkish officials for the Saudis to cooperate.
Riyadh insists he was killed in a “rogue” operation.
But the CIA, a UN special envoy and Ankara have directly linked the Saudi crown prince to the killing, a charge the kingdom vehemently denies.
The İstanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that Assiri and Qahtani were charged with “instigating the deliberate and monstrous killing, causing torment.”
The murder caused relations to between Ankara and Riyadh — which have a longstanding geopolitical rivalry — to worsen.
Saudis, who enjoy investing and holidaying in Turkey, were urged to boycott the country last year.
Turkey is a key backer of Qatar, especially after a Riyadh-led economic blockade began against the Gulf state in 2017, and is accused of supporting groups including the Muslim Brotherhood.
Eighteen other suspects — including intelligence operative Maher Mutreb, who frequently travelled with the crown prince on foreign tours, forensic expert Salah al-Tubaigy and Fahad al-Balawi, a member of the Saudi royal guard — were also charged with “deliberately and monstrously killing, causing torment.”
They face life in jail if convicted.
Mutreb, Tubaigy and Balawi had been among 11 people on trial in Riyadh. Western officials said many of those accused defended themselves by saying they were carrying out Assiri’s orders, describing him as the operation’s ringleader.
Five unnamed people were sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia in December, while three others were handed down jail sentences totaling 24 years over the killing.
Qahtani had been investigated but was not charged by Saudi authorities because of “insufficient evidence,” while Assiri was charged but eventually acquitted on the same grounds.
The Turkish prosecutor said a trial in absentia would be conducted for the 20 suspects but did not give a date.
The prosecutor has already issued arrest warrants for the suspects, who are not in Turkey.
Agnes Callamard, the UN rapporteur on extrajudicial killings who led an international probe into the murder of the late Saudi journalist, welcomed Turkey’s indictment, saying it was needed as a “counter balance to the travesty of justice at the hands of Saudi Arabia.”
In a statement to Reuters, Callamard urged US authorities to release their findings on responsibility for the death of Khashoggi, “including the responsibility of Saudi Arabia crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.”