On Tuesday 20 October 2020, Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of the late Washington Post editorialist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018, and the human rights group DAWN founded by Khashoggi himself, filed a federal law suit in a Washington, DC District Court against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and more than two dozen other top Saudi officials seeking to hold them liable for Khashoggi’s death.
A judicial action that is part of the “Justice for Jamal” campaign launched by Hatice Cengiz two years ago – with the support of No Peace Without Justice – both to denounce the continuous Saudi attempts to cover up the truth as well as to urge the international community not to accept that this atrocious “state crime” remains unpunished. As documented by the by U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Agnès Callamard, there is significant evidence pointing to the responsibility of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its Crown Prince, in the premeditated planning and execution of Jamal’s assassination.
Since 2018, Saudi Arabia has repeatedly omitted or obstructed adequate justice for what was perpetrated, including through a sham trial against the material perpetrators of the crime which raised serious concerns about the independence and fairness of the Saudi judicial system. In addition to the ongoing judicial proceedings in Turkey, NPSG hopes that this lawsuit in the United States will help break the cloak of silence that the Saudi regime has tried to bring down on the Khashoggi case, with the complicity of “realpolitik”, as well as contribute to hold the instigators of the crime accountable for their actions. Fighting against impunity for the murder of Jamal also means not legitimizing the model of widespread repression implemented by the Saudi authorities to silence – even by the most brutal means – independent or dissident voices.
For further information, contact Nicola Giovannini, Press & Public Affairs Coordinator, on ngiovannini@npwj.org org.
