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Turkey says it will follow Khashoggi case ‘regardless how high it goes’

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Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is an international news organisation owned by Thomson Reuters

ANKARA: Turkey will follow the case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing “regardless how it goes”, the country’s Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said on Tuesday, slamming Riyadh’s verdict in the “sham trial” as an insult to the intelligence of observers.

Saudi Arabia on Monday sentenced five people to death and three to jail over Khashoggi’s murder, but a U.N. investigator accused it of making a “mockery” of justice by allowing the masterminds of last year’s killing to go free.

“The verdict of the sham trial is an insult to the intelligence of any fair observer. Those responsible must face justice sooner or later,” Altun said. “We will follow this case to the end regardless how high it goes,” he added on Twitter.

Saudi prosecutors had said deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri oversaw the Washington Post columnist’s killing in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate in October 2018 and that he was advised by the royal court’s media czar Saud al-Qahtani.

However, Qahtani was investigated but not indicted “due to insufficient evidence” and Assiri was investigated and charged but eventually acquitted on the same grounds, the statement said.

Of the 11 unnamed individuals indicted in the case, five were sentenced to death, three face jail terms totalling 24 years, and the others were acquitted.

The prosecutor said that the Riyadh court hearing the case held a total of nine sessions attended by representatives of the international community as well as Khashoggi’s relatives.

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