Murdered Journalist Jamal Khashoggi Still Used as Political Commodity

There are details the Saudis likely have that could bring at least minimal comfort to Khashoggi's family.

Time
Murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi is honored as part of Time's Person of the Year. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
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It’s been 100 days since Saudi officials allegedly murdered and dismembered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and his remains have yet to be unearthed.

The Saudis say they haded his body to “local accomplices” but “refuse to name them, and Turkish investigators who have pieced together his final hours from closed-circuit TV footage have failed to fully investigate where the trail finally leads,” writes CNN‘s International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson writes.

Kashoggi is now being denied the respect that should come with death, according to Robertson, and is now being “intentionally diminished and turned in to a political commodity at the expense of his legacy and his family.”

The Turkish government — while being appalled at the apparent clean-up jobs the Saudis performed at their consulate in Istanbul, where it is assumed Kashoggi was murdered, and at the consul general’s residence, the place where Kashoggi’s body was likely hidden — have not tried to get back in to perform further investigations.

“Khashoggi’s body, of course, won’t just provide much-needed solace and a small amount of closure for his family but will likely give prosecutors vital information about precisely who killed him and how,” writes Robertson, “details the Saudis, despite having the alleged killers in their hands, won’t disclose.”

And the U.S., for all its grandstanding early on, has been largely silent.

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