'Stain on our humanity': Jamal Khashoggi's fiancée asks US to punish Saudi prince

Turkish fiancée of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Sunday said that she wanted Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman “punished without delay” for murdering her partner journalist Kamal Khashoggi. In a statement on her official Twitter handle, Hatice Cengiz said: ‘It is essential that the Crown Prince, who ordered the brutal murder of a blameless and innocent person, should be punished without delay'. Her remarks come after the Joe Biden administration refrained from taking action against the 35 year Saudi’s de facto leader after the US Intelligence committee declassified a sensitive report about the former’s participation in directing the journalist’s assassination. In a statement, Cengiz said, "This will not only bring the justice we have been seeking.... but it could also prevent similar acts recurring". She added, "If the crown prince is not punished, it will forever... endanger us all and be a stain on our humanity."

Khashoggi, a Saudi critic who wrote columns for Washington Post and Middle East Eye, was forcibly restrained inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate allegedly by Saudi operatives, which, according to Saudi Arabia's deputy public prosecutor Shalaan al-Shalaan, was despatched to Istanbul on the command of Saudi’s deputy intelligence chief. He was injected with a large quantity of the drug, and his body was then dismembered and handed to a "collaborator" outside the consulate for disposal, Al-Shallan told state press.

At an international forum hosted by Turkey's public broadcaster TRT later that year, the slain journalist’s fiancée asked Saudi’s crown prince, addressed as MBS, ‘Why was he [Khashoggi] killed? Why did they [Saudi] brutally kill Jamal?” At a live-streamed session titled Jamal Khashoggi: A Reflection of Regional Politics, Hatice Cengiz told reporters that she wondered where was her partner’s body, confessing that the family and friends “still don’t know where it is".

Read: Joe Biden Says He Will 'make Announcement' On Saudi Arabia On March 1

Read: White House Defends Decision Not To Sanction Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman

[People hold posters of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, near the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul. Credit: AP]

No political legitimacy for MBS

In her latest appeal to the newly elected US President Joe Biden, the butchered journalist’s Turkish fiancee asked the United States to take retaliatory actions against the Saudi leader, after the CIA report held MBS responsible for the murder. "This will not only bring the justice we have been seeking for Jamal, but it could also prevent similar acts recurring in the future," Cengiz said in a statement posted on her social media in both English and Arabic. Cengiz added that "following this report, there is no longer any political legitimacy for the crown prince". "The truth that was already known has been revealed one more time, and it is now confirmed,” the fiancee’s statement in Arabic translated. “Yet this is not enough," she warned, "since the truth can only be meaningful when it serves justice being achieved.”

Read: 'Unjustified': Saudi Arabia 'completely Rejects' US Assessment On Khashoggi's Murder

Read: 'Khashoggi Ban': US Announces Sanctions, Visa Ban On Saudi Arabian Citizens