On October 2,2019, Jamal Khashoggi, a US-based journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia’s government walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to file paperwork to marry his fiancée Hatice Cengiz. Khashoggi never left the embassy; he was last seen on CCTV footage entering the building at 13:14 local time.
The Saudi Journalist, who wrote critically about Mohammed Ben Salman (MBS) in columns in The Washington Post, gave his fiancée, who accompanied him to the entrance of the consulate, two mobile phones and told her to call an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan if he did not come back out.
She ultimately waited for more than 10 hours outside the consulate and returned the following morning when Khashoggi had still not reappeared.
In the months that followed, conflicting narratives emerged over how he was murdered inside his nation’s embassy, what happened to his remains, and who was responsible.
In a change of tune on October 20, 2019, after denying the journalist’s death inside the embassy, the Saudi government said a preliminary investigation by prosecutors had concluded that the journalist died during a “fight” after resisting attempts to return him to Saudi Arabia. Later, a Saudi official attributed the death to a chokehold.
A report released in June 2019 by Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur, concluded that Khashoggi’s death “constituted an extrajudicial killing for which the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible.”
According to Turkish officials, a waiting Saudi hit squad strangled him and dismembered his body, which has never been retrieved.
Khashoggi’s murder came at a time when then-President Trump was having a cozy relationship with Saudi royals.
Trump administration protected Saudi Arabia’s top leaders from the fallout of the murder, while Democrats and some Republicans in Congress pushed for accountability for the death of Khashoggi, who was a US resident and worked for a US newspaper.
Less than two years ago, then-US presidential candidate Joe Biden answered “yes” when asked whether he would hold senior Saudi leaders accountable for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
As part of a commitment to Biden’s promise, the Democrat administration released earlier this year, a brief report on the US intelligence community’s assessment of the murder of Khashoggi.
“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” the report said.
However, this week, just days before the three-year anniversary of the journalist’s murder, President Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in the Gulf kingdom.
Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s widow, questioned on Friday US Biden’s commitment to hold the kingdom accountable three years after the journalist’s brutal murder.
Marking the anniversary, Cengiz traveled to Washington for a demonstration outside the Saudi embassy and an evening vigil near the US Capitol where she unveiled a portrait of Khashoggi made out of newspaper columns.
Three years after brutally being murdered in his nation’s embassy, Jamal Khashoggi’s body is still unfound as his killers are still unpunished, while Committee to Protect Journalists is still calling for justice.
The Saudi journalist’s story became a symbol of the journalism’s struggles, odds, and dangers around the world, while his last words on twitter “say your word, and go,” extended to an inspiring slogan that summarizes his tragic journey as a journalist
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