UN failed to take ‘enough action’ on Khashoggi murder

By Muhammad Mussa

LONDON (AA) - The UN has not taken “enough action” for the prosecution of those responsible for journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, her fiancée Hatice Cengiz said.

Cengiz was speaking at a panel discussion in London organized by the ALQST for Human Rights in Saudi Arabia and hosted a number of guest speakers on Tuesday.

Her remarks came in the backdrop of UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard’s last month report that said there are “credible evidence” to further probe the liability of Saudi officials, including Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, in Khashoggi’s killing.

“The UN should set up an international trial as recommended in the report to prosecute those responsible for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, these actions would prevent attempts at silencing us and pushing this matter under the carpet,” Cengiz said.

“If we do not take a moral stance on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, it will take the world into a dark corner from where there is no going back,” she said.

Speaking at the event, Callamard, who submitted the report into the killing of Saudi journalist, explains as to why it is the duty of the international community to take steps for bringing Khashoggi's killers to justice and to ensure such a crime never occurs again.

“I decided to undertake an inquiry into the killing of Mr Khashoggi when I realized there was nobody in the United Nations who was bothered in taking that step and I felt that a crisis such as the killing of Mr Khashoggi could not go unanswered,” Callarmard said.

She gave a brief summary of her main findings and explains how 15 Saudi state agents travelled to Turkey prior to the murder, and after the assassination 17 more agents arrived in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to remove every trace of evidence of the murder so that Turkish investigators could not find anything.

Callamard also called for judicial accountability, advising the UN general secretary to set up a team of criminal law experts to bring to justice each individual who is responsible for the murder, including those who gave the orders.

Yahya Assiri, director of the ALQST for Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, condemned “mass human rights violations by the Saudi regime”.

“The Saudi regime began committing crimes a long time ago and we are seeing crimes not just in the country but outside as well,” he added.

These crimes, Assiri explained, were “mass human rights violations which include mass imprisonment and executions of activists, most notably women, of scholars who speak out against the regime, and the deadly war that the regime began in Yemen which has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.”

Karen Attiah, global editor for the Washington Post, said: “Our fight for Jamal Khashoggi is a fight for journalism and for all people to say, write and draw what they want without fear of being targeted.”

Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a group of Saudi operatives shortly after he entered the Turkey’s Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 to acquire a marriage certificate.

Riyadh offered various conflicting narratives to explain the disappearance before acknowledging Khashoggi was killed in the diplomatic building while trying to shift blame for his death on a botched rendition by rogue agents.