Khashoggi felt 'threatened' by people close to Saudi Crown Prince, testifies close friend

A close friend of Jamal Khashoggi on November 24 told a Turkish court that the slain Saudi journalist felt “threatened” by people close to the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. During the second main court hearing in Istanbul in the trial in absentia of at least 26 Saudi suspects including two former aids of Saudi Crown Prince in the gruesome murder of the Washington Post columnist, Ayman Nour who is an Egyptian political dissident and a longtime friend of Khashoggi told the court that the journalist had narrated personally about he was threatened by the Saudi media czar.

Several Turkish media outlets quoted Nour saying that “Jamal said he had been threatened by Qahtani and his family.” Separately, Rebecca Vincent of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) tweeted from the courtroom, “Nour said Khashoggi had reported being threatened by Saud al-Qahtani since 2016.”

“Khashoggi spoke of a phone call from Qahtani when he was living in Washington DC, saying he knew his kids and where they lived. Nour said Khashoggi was crying, which was unusual, and said he was afraid,” Vincent reported from the courtroom followed by Khashoggi’s account of his first visit to Saudi consulate according to Nour.

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Turkish court hearing of Khashoggi killing

The 59-year-old was suffocated and dismembered inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate on October 2, 2018, after he went inside to get the required documents for his marriage to Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz. This gruesome murder triggered a worldwide rage and stained the reputation of the oil-rich kingdom as well as its Crown Prince. The current ongoing Turkish trial is being held separately after Saudi court on September 7 announced its final verdict in the case of slain Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi and overturned the death sentences of five individuals convicted for the gruesome murder.

Instead, Riyadh court imprisoned eight unidentified people for seven to 20-year terms. This was deemed as a “parody of justice” by Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Seeking justice to the two-year-old incident, the Turkish prosecutors have charged Saudi’s former deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri and the royal court's one-time media czar Saud al-Qahtani with plotting the Khashoggi murder and even giving direct orders to a Saudi hit team. 

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