A Turkish court has closed the murder case of journalist Jamal Khashoggi ahead of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Turkey.
MBS visited Turkey on June 22. Five days earlier, on June 17, the Istanbul 11th Heavy Penal Court in Turkey had closed the Khashoggi murder case.
The court ruled that there were legal reasons behind the termination of the case. The court in Istanbul said that the defendants in the case had been tried and convicted by a criminal court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and therefore the trial in Turkey was unnecessary.
The statement was made quoting documents from the First Joint Chamber of the Criminal Court in Riyadh.
Meanwhile, MBS ‘visit to Turkey was part of strengthening ties between Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Last April, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Saudi Arabia and met with King Salman and his son MBS.
In 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. This was the Turkish president’s first visit to Saudi Arabia since then. Shortly after that, MBS will visit Turkey.
This is the first visit by a Saudi leader to Turkey since Khashoggi’s assassination.
As part of the visit, the MBS-Erdogan meeting also took place in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi was an event that caused great controversy and severed ties between Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Erdogan has accused Khashoggi of being assassinated by a senior Saudi government official, but has since been criticized.
A U.S. intelligence report released last year said MBS had authorized the operation to assassinate Khashoggi. But the Saudi government denied all of this.
