Khashoggi's fiancee rejects family's forgiveness to killers

Murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee has said "no-one has the right to pardon his killers" after his son said the forgave them, the media reported.

Taking to Twitter on Friday, Hatice Cengiz wrote that Khashoggi had become "an international symbol bigger than any of us, admired and loved", the BBC reported.

Cengiz added that "Jamal was killed inside his country's consulate while getting the docs to complete our marriage. The killers came from Saudi with premeditation to lure, ambush (and) kill him".

Her remarks came the same day that Salah Khashoggi, one of the late journalist's sons, said in a statement: "In this blessed night of the blessed month (of Ramzan) 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 journalist, who had gone into self-imposed exile in the US in 2017, went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2nd 2018 seeking documents to get married to fiance Hatice Cengiz.

Investigators believe that Khashoggi, who had been writing for the Washington Post newspaper, was murdered and dismembered while she waited outside, but his remains have never been recovered.

Saudi officials initially claimed he had left the building alive and their account of events changed several times in the weeks after his disappearance.

After offering changing accounts of his disappearance, Saudi authorities eventually submitted he was killed in a botched operation by a team tasked with getting him to return to the country, reports the BBC.

In December 2019, a court sentenced five unnamed men to death for their role in his killing after a secretive trial in Riyadh.

Salah, who lives in the Saudi city of Jeddah, has previously issued statements expressing his confidence in, and support of, the Saudi investigation.