۶ اردیبهشت ۱۴۰۳ |۱۶ شوال ۱۴۴۵ | Apr 25, 2024
Team of forensic police in Khashoggi Murder check Tandoori Oven at Saudi Embassy in newly-released images of investigation

In the picture, a forensic police are shown inspecting the oven as part of the investigation at the Saudi Consulate where Kashoggi was killed on October 2, 2018, Daily Mail reported.

Hawzah News Agency - In the picture, a forensic police are shown inspecting the oven as part of the investigation at the Saudi Consulate where Kashoggi was killed on October 2, 2018, Daily Mail reported.

To mark the second anniversary journalists and human rights activists called for justice for the The Washington Post columnist on Friday, holding a demonstration near the consulate in the Turkish capital.

It is believed that the oven shown in the picture was used by a team of Saudi agents to burn Khashoggi's body after he was killed inside the consulate. The series of pictures also show the forensic team using UV lights to detect blood stains on the walls and floors inside the building.

In July, a Saudi embassy worker told the Khashoggi murder trial that he saw many "skewers of meat" and was told by "panicked" staff to light the oven on the day the journalist was killed and dismembered. 

Zeki Demir, a local technician who worked for the consulate, told the court he had been called to the consul's residence, close to the consulate itself, on the day of the killing.

"There were five to six people there... They asked me to light up the tandoor (oven). There was an air of panic," he said.

According to the indictment Demir also reported seeing many skewers of meat, and noticed that the marble slabs around the oven appeared to have changed color as if they had been cleaned with a chemical.

Dozens of activists gathered at a memorial erected in Khashoggi's honor near the Saudi Consulate building in the Turkish city.

The activists denounced the journalist's slaying, which cast a shadow over the reputation of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and criminal proceedings in Saudi Arabia as inadequate.

"Justice has still not materialized," journalist Turan Kislak, who was a friend of Khashoggi's, said, adding, "A theatrical court has been in session for two years. However, no details on this subject has been given to the world."

Last month, a court in Saudi Arabia issued final verdicts convicting eight unnamed Saudi nationals in Khashoggi's 2018 killing.

The verdicts by the Riyadh Criminal Court came after Khashoggi's son, who still resides in the kingdom, announced pardons that spared five of the convicted individuals from execution.

The trial has been widely criticized by rights groups and observers, who said it was conducted behind closed doors and lacked transparency.

"What happened to Jamal Khassogi's body? If a court has been in session for two years, we want an explanation," Kislak said.

Turkey, which had insisted that the suspects be extradited and put on trial in the country, is now trying two of the Saudi crown prince's former aides other Saudi nationals in absentia.

Last month, it also indicted six other Saudi nationals, including two former consulate employees.

A team of 15 Saudi agents had flown to Turkey to meet Khashoggi inside the consulate for his appointment on October 2, 2018 to pick up documents that would allow him to marry his Turkish fiancee, who waited outside.

The team included a forensic doctor, intelligence and security officers, and individuals who worked directly for the crown prince's office, according to Agnes Callamard, who investigated the killing for the United Nations.

Turkish officials allege Khashoggi was killed and then dismembered with a bone saw inside the consulate. His body has not been found.

Prior to his killing, Khashoggi had written critically of Prince Mohammad in columns for The Washington Post at a time when the young heir to the throne was being widely hailed by Washington for pushing through social reforms.

The Vienna-based International Press Institute, a press freedom advocacy group, decried the lack of justice for Khashoggi in a statement issued earlier this week.

"Two years have passed since Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, yet Saudi Arabia has failed to name or hold responsible the mastermind behind the killing," IPI Executive Director Barbara Trionfi said.

"The fact that Saudi Arabia has managed to avoid any real consequences for this abominable act exposes the hypocrisy of human rights discourse by governments that continue to roll out the red carpet for the Kingdom," Trionfi added.

"The recent verdicts in the Saudi trial are a mockery of justice that the international community should not accept," she said.

Meanwhile, Khashoggi's family and friends this week launched the work of Democracy for the Arab World Now, a nonprofit organization that Khashoggi founded not long before he was killed. They accused the United States of "shielding the top Saudi officials responsible for his death".

"Rather than cozy up to the Saudi officials who ordered Khashoggi's gruesome murder, the Trump administration should provide the transparency that Congress has demanded regarding our government's knowledge about Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman's role in this crime," DAWN's executive director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said.

Comment

You are replying to: .