Hatice Cengiz says she feels emotional responsibility
ADVERTISEMENTThe woman who was due to marry murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi has said her fiancé had concerns about visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on the night before he died there.
But Khashoggi told Hatice Cengiz, to whom he’d been engaged for four months, that he didn't imagine the authorities would dare cause him harm in a foreign country.
Speaking on Turkish television Ms Jengiz explained that he was going to the consulate to collect documents for the marriage and - for that - she felt guilty:
"If I knew something like this would happen,” she said. “I would have agreed not to marry him and I would never have wanted him to go inside. Because I have a huge emotional responsibility, an emotional conscience.”
As international pressure has grown, President Trump has promised "severe punishment" if the Saudi government - a close ally of the U.S. - was found to be linked to the killing.
But Hatice Cengiz declined an offer to meet with Trump saying she didn't feel he was sincere in his condemnation.
"Yes Trump invited me to the United States during the first days of the investigation” she said. “But his statements were at very short intervals and they were contradictory."
"This is an approach by Trump we are used to," the interviewer interjected. "I perceived it as a statement to win the sympathy of the public. That's how I understood it."
Saudi authorities originally said Khashoggi died during a fight with officials in the consulate, and that his body was removed by an unidentified person. Turkish investigators - who are still looking for the body - believe he was tortured and dismembered.