Salah Khashoggi, the eldest son of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, posted a statement on Twitter ‘pardoning’ his father’s killers, the BBC reported.
Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the Saudi government, was killed inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Saudi officials maintained his death was a result of a ‘rogue operation’ and was not state-sanctioned.
The journalist – who had gone into self-imposed exile in the United States in 2017 – had gone to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 seeking documents in order to get married to fiancée Hatice Cengiz. Investigators believe that he was murdered and dismembered while she waited outside, but his remains have never been recovered.
Saudi accounts of what happened have been doubted internationally, including by some intelligence agencies and the United Nations.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Salah Khashoggi, who lives in Jedda, wrote: ‘In this blessed night of the blessed month [of Ramadan] we remember God’s saying: If a person forgives and makes reconciliation, his reward is due from Allah. Therefore we the sons of the Martyr Jamal Khashoggi announce pardoning those who killed our father, seeking reward God almighty.’
The BBC reported that Salah had previously issued statements expressing his confidence in, and support of, the Saudi investigation.
He had also previously criticised ‘opponents and enemies’ of Saudi Arabia who he said had tried to exploit his father’s death to undermine the country’s leadership.
It was reported by the Washington Post last year that Khashoggi’s children had received homes and monthly payments as compensation for the killing of their father, but that Salah was the only sibling who intended to carry on living in Saudi Arabia.
[Picture: April Brady, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73742140]