The Khashoggi case: five years later

Five years ago, Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to pick up a document he needed in order to marry his Turkish fiancée, but he never came out.

Investigations found that the Saudi journalist had been murdered and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad. The Saudi Crown Prince said that it was a mistake, describing the whole story as 'a rogue operation'.

Some countries, such as the US and Turkey disagreed with the Saudi version of events. US intelligence officials, for example, believed the order to “capture or kill” Khashoggi came from the very top in Riyadh — that is, from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

In a 2021 statement, the US Director of National Intelligence said, "We assess that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi."

The accusation and denial game went on for months. Bin Salman dismissed the accusation as baseless, presenting himself as a victim of an international vendetta. But Washington and Ankara, on the other hand, insisted that the Crown Prince was involved in the murder and could not get away with it. They called for justice to be done. After half a decade, it is a proper time to see how serious the United States and Turkey were about what they called justicd for Jamal.

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