Jamal Khashoggi fiancée calls for Saudi crown prince to be punished by US (2024)

The fiancée of the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has called on President Biden to punish Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for authorising the operation that led to his death.

Hatice Cengiz issued a statement today in response to the Biden administration’s decision last Friday to impose sanctions on Saudi officials over the murder but not on the prince himself. The prince is day-to-day ruler of Saudi Arabia and was accused in a CIA report, also released on Friday, of having “approved an operation in Istanbul . . . to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi” in October 2018.

“It is essential that the crown prince, who ordered the brutal murder of a blameless and innocent person, should be punished without delay,” Cengiz said in a statement posted to her Twitter account.

“If the crown prince is not punished it will forever signal that the main culprit can get away with murder, which will endanger us all and be a stain on our humanity.”

She said that “starting with the Biden administration” all world leaders should ask themselves whether they were prepared to “shake hands with a person whose culpability as a murderer has been proven”.

Cengiz’s statement was echoed by Agnès Callamard, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, who called US inaction against the crown prince “extremely worrisome”.

“It is extremely, in my view, problematic if not dangerous to acknowledge someone’s culpability and then to tell that someone that we won’t do anything,” she said. “I am calling on the US government to act on its public findings and to sanction Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) for what he has done.”

Biden’s sanctions announcement on Friday was signalled as a “recalibration” of America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia after the Trump years, when the White House saw the prince as its closest partner in the Arab world.

During his election campaign Biden said the crown prince had been spurred on by the licence given by Trump over earlier capricious behaviour, including rounding up businessmen and rival princes and incarcerating human rights activists.

However, Biden has also made it clear that he has no intention of upending America’s traditional alliances and partnerships, and has said he will continue to help Saudi Arabia with its defence and security.

He authorised visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals, and sanctions on some officials and organisations held responsible for Khashoggi’s death. They included the Rapid Intervention Force, a special section of the Saudi Royal Guard that has come to be seen as a personal hit squad.

“We have urged Saudi Arabia to disband this group and then adopt institutional, systemic reforms and controls to ensure that anti-dissident activities and operations cease and cease completely,” Ned Price, a spokesman for the US State Department, said. “We have made crystal clear — and will continue to do so — that the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi 28 months ago remains unacceptable conduct.”

The CIA report relied in part on a Turkish investigation that accused a 15-man squad of having flown into Istanbul, killing and dismembering Khashoggi, 59, in the Saudi consulate after he refused to return to Riyadh with them. He had gone to the consulate to secure papers confirming his divorce from his Saudi wife so that he could marry Cengiz, 39, who is Turkish. Cengiz had accompanied him and was waiting outside.

In response to criticism that the sanctions did not go far enough, the White House announced that there would be a further statement today, although it is not expected to outline any significant extension. Officials stressed they did not want to “rupture” the relationship with Saudi Arabia, which remains key to US assessments of security in the Gulf and dealing with the challenge posed by Iran.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that the US did not typically sanction foreign leaders, but hinted that the crown prince was not permanently off the hook. “Of course we reserve the right to take any action at the time and manner of our choosing,” she said.

Biden has also altered, but not overthrown, Trump’s policy towards Tehran, saying that he will rejoin the 2015 nuclear treaty but only lift sanctions once Iran has returned its nuclear programme to the limits set by the deal.

Iran has said it will act only after sanctions have been lifted, creating an impasse. Last night it rejected a compromise whereby the EU would host a new informal round of talks in which a step-by-step process might be worked out.

“President Joe Biden’s administration should change Trump’s maximum-pressure policy towards Tehran,” Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, said today. “If they want talks with Iran, first they should lift sanctions.”

America said that it was disappointed at the response and would consult further with European leaders.

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