The tough penal court in Istanbul, Turkey, ended the first absentee hearings of 20 Saudi defendants by killing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his country's consulate in 2018, and the court postponed the second session of the case to November 24.
The Al-Jazeera correspondent said that the court had ordered that international fetch notes be kept, and that the absent defendants be brought to trial by force.
Among the most prominent names of the accused in the case are Saud Al-Qahtani, former adviser to the Saudi crown prince, and Ahmed Asiri, former deputy chief of Saudi intelligence.
The Turkish public prosecutor is demanding life imprisonment for the accused on charges of planning, incitement and murder in a brutal manner.
The defendants could not be brought in because Riyadh refused to hand them over to the Turkish judicial authorities, despite Ankara issuing an international arrest warrant to arrest them and bring them to trial.
After testifying before the judge, Khadija Genghis - Khashoggi's fiancée - confirmed that she believed in justice in Turkey.
In turn, Yassin Aktai, advisor to the Chairman of the Justice and Development Party, confirmed that justice will prolong Khashoggi's killers sooner or later, and he accused Riyadh of not cooperating with the Turkish authorities.
For its part, the United Nations special investigator, Anees Kalamar, considered that although no reference was made to the role of the Saudi crown prince in the Khashoggi case, this would be done at some point in the trial.
Today’s trial before the Turkish judiciary comes nearly 3 months after the Turkish Prosecutor published the full indictment against 20 Saudi suspects who had participated in the brutal planning and execution of Khashoggi's killing, slicing and concealment of his body.
According to the rulings issued by Riyadh, which the Saudi public prosecutor announced regarding the case at the end of last year, no charges were brought against Al-Qahtani due to what was described as lack of evidence, as was the case of Al-Asiri, who was also released for the same reason, and the Saudi consul, Mohammed Al-Otaibi, was acquitted.
As for the five defendants who were sentenced to death without revealing their identities, it is likely that the sentences will not be implemented against them after the Khashoggi family announced amnesty for his killers, which paves the way for a legal amnesty for the accused.
Turkey has described the rulings issued by Riyadh on the Khashoggi case as far from achieving justice, and has called on the Saudi authorities for judicial cooperation.
Private investigator Aniyas Kalamar concluded in her investigation that Khashoggi brutally massacred, and that the crime of his murder represented extrajudicial execution.
It also called for an investigation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose name was mentioned in US intelligence reports that suggested that he was the one who gave orders to carry out the crime.
The Turkish Prosecution confirmed that it had prepared the indictment, after listening to all parties, reviewing phone calls and surveillance cameras, conducting investigations in Saudi courts, and collecting all evidence about the crime.