Jamal Khashoggi recalls by the thousands in Saudi Arabia and Turkey

Jamal Khashoggi's family and friends on Friday announced funeral prayers in Saudi Arabia and Turkey in memory of the Saudi journalist killed by Saudi government agents. This affair sparked a worldwide outcry and plunged the kingdom into crisis.

The Saudi prosecutor announced on Thursday that he would seek the death sentence of five suspects in the badbadination in front of the Istanbul consulate on October 2. They have not provided names, but at least two are senior officials close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

By an unusual measure against a major economic and security partner, the US Treasury imposed economic sanctions on 17 Saudis, including Saud al-Qahtani, the former Supreme Councilor of the Crown Prince.

Riyad maintains that bin Salman has nothing to do with the murder, even as Turkey and some Western allies, including US President Donald Trump, have declared ultimate responsibility for him as the country's de facto leader. Saudi reports of the badbadination, including the initial denials, sparked skepticism abroad.

Tens of thousands of followers of the Great Mosque of Mecca and the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina, the hometown of Khashoggi, joined the prayers, without the imams being named Khashoggi.

In Istanbul, people in mourning raised their hands in prayer in front of the Fatih mosque. An imam recited Qur'anic verses under a tent set up to protect himself from the rain and Khashoggi's friends rented him.

"What we heard yesterday from the Saudi prosecutor is not the justice we expected or expected, but the very injustice," said Ayman Nour, a liberal Egyptian politician.

An advisor to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan asked bin Salman to dissociate himself from the court proceedings.

"There is no chance of having an independent judicial procedure of the Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia," Yasin Aktay said.

For weeks, Khashoggi's family has been urging the Saudi and Turkish authorities to find his remains and hand them over to him for burial, but the Saudi prosecutor said their fate was unknown.

The Islamic tradition attaches paramount importance to the proper treatment of the dead, requiring a quick burial. The revelation that the body was dismembered was therefore particularly disturbing.

& # 39; Do not sink emotionally with me & # 39;

The decision to organize prayer services in the absence of body suggests that the family does not expect it to be found.

Khashoggi's son, Salah, met with the King and Crown Prince in Riyadh last month to receive condolences as well as other family members. He then traveled to Washington after the lifting of the travel ban and told CNN on November 5 that he wished to bury his father in Medina with the rest of the family.

"We just have to make sure he's resting peacefully," Salah said. "Until now, I still can not believe he's dead. It does not engulf me emotionally."

Khashoggi's fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish researcher who had been waiting in front of the Istanbul consulate for hours on the day of her badbadination, alerted authorities and the media when he never left the country. # 39; building. Last week she called Muslims around the world funeral prayer for him.

On Thursday, she tweeted a Khashoggi selfie in front of the Prophet's mosque in the Medina Mosque, writing: "Dear Jamal … rest in peace, we will meet again in paradise inshallah [God willing]..! "

Cengiz and Khashoggi met at a conference in Istanbul in May and quickly decided to get married. He had entered the consulate that day to obtain documents proving the end of a previous marriage.

Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, is one of the many people who have called for justice for those responsible for her badbadination. (Dylan Martinez / Reuters)

The two men bought an apartment in Istanbul and Khashoggi planned to live between that place and Washington, where he had moved 18 months earlier, fearing retaliation. He obtained the American residency and wrote for the Washington Post, becoming familiar to many American decision-makers.

"I left my home, my family and my job, and raised my voice, otherwise I would betray those who languish in jail," he wrote in September 2017, referring to intellectuals, activists and religious arrested under bin Salman. .

The badbadination of Khashoggi provoked the biggest political crisis in a generation for Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and a supporter of Washington's plans to contain Iran's influence in the Middle East.

He also tarnished the image of bub Salman, who pushed social and economic reforms while repressing dissent, unbalancing the fragile balance within the ruling family and dragging the country into disorderly conflicts in Yemen and in Qatar.