The fiancee of deceased Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has asked the United Nations to conduct an international investigation into his murder. A United Nations report published last week had blamed Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s death inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.
“This is the first report that says loud and clear how to proceed,” Hatice Cengiz told diplomats and the media at the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday, Al Jazeera reported. “We need an international investigation into Jamal’s murder. Not only high-level officials are involved in the killing, but the report says Saudi Arabia has tried to eliminate the evidence of it. It’s scandalous.”
Cengiz said she has not been able to overcome her fiancee’s murder even though nearly 10 months have passed. “I still ask myself if he may still be alive, if he is somewhere,” she said. “I hope the report does not remain dead word, it should not be shelved. The UN must take action now.”
Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the Saudi regime, was a US resident who wrote for The Washington Post. He was killed after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October last year. Last week, United Nations expert Agnes Callamard said Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman should be investigated for Khashoggi’s murder because of “credible evidence” that he and other senior officials were liable for the killing.
Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, had prepared last week’s report. On Tuesday, she said that Khashoggi’s killing “is the symbol of a pattern around the world, which the international community must respond to energetically”.
However, United States President Donald Trump said on Monday that there was no need for such an investigation. “I think it’s been heavily investigated,” Trump said in an interview with NBC’s Meet The Press. When asked the investigations were done by whom, Trump said: “By everybody. I mean…I’ve seen so many different reports.”
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