One of Jamal Khashoggi’s sons said he believed the Saudi crown prince when he told him that the people who killed his father would be brought to justice.
“In that meeting with the king and the crown prince, when I went there with my uncle, the king has stressed that everybody involved will be brought to justice,” one of the journalist’s sons, Salah Khashoggi, told CNN. “And I have faith in that this will happen.”
The sons of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi are speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with @NicRobertsonCNN, making an emotional plea for his body to be recovered: “All that we want right now is to bury him … with the rest of his family in Saudi Arabia” pic.twitter.com/Dngua8zLBc
— New Day (@NewDay) November 5, 2018
Salah, who has dual U.S.-Saudi citizenship, was permitted to leave Saudi Arabia and arrived in the U.S. at the end of October. Previously, the eldest son’s passport was restricted by the kingdom and he was not allowed to leave the country.
Last month, the Washington Post speculated that a previous interview involving Salah had been conducted under duress because he hadn’t been allowed to leave the country.
The younger son, Abdullah Khashoggi, joined his brother for the interview with CNN.
The two sons of the slain Washington Post columnist said that their father would want to be buried with his family in Saudi Arabia, and that they were speaking with authorities in Riyadh to make that happen.
Salah said that his father was not a Saudi dissident, despite multiple characterizations of him that describe him as so, but said instead that he loved his country and its potential.
The elder son said Khashoggi would want to be remembered as a “moderate man” who loved Saudi Arabia and believed in its potential.
“Jamal was never a dissident, he believed in the monarchy — that it is the thing that is keeping the country together. And he believed in the transformation that it [Saudi Arabia] is going through,” Salah said.
The ruling totalitarian monarchy in Saudi Arabia often implements travel bans on their citizens, and will detain those they deem a threat or dissident to its authority.
“We should keep in mind there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Saudi Arabia who face travel bans and are held in detention without any justice,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of the rights watchdog for the Middle East and North Africa, told AFP, according to the Times of Israel.
Khashoggi disappeared last month after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul Oct. 2 to obtain paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancee. Saudi Arabia has admitted that the green card-holding Virginia resident was killed, but has not released any information on how.
