A Newly Unclassified Report on Khashoggi’s Murder

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Obviously, the United States has to toe a very difficult line, because, on the one hand, Saudi Arabia has been an ally, a strategic ally of the U.S., for a long, long time. And very few people believe that the U.S. could mobilize any kind of whatever, instruments, to, as you say, remove him, even if it was done internally. I want you to stand by, because I know you were a close friend of Jamal’s, and I’m going to get — I’m going to talk to you about that. But we have his widow, Hatice Cengiz, on the phone, and I just want to get her first reactions to this report. Hatice, can you hear me all right? And can you give me your reaction to this report now being made public?

HATICE CENGIZ, FIANCEE OF JAMAL KHASHOGGI: Thank you for having me. I just want to share my feelings, Christiane. I am devastated than ever before. Now I believe he will never come back. I just looked Jamal’s pictures that I took one by one. I don’t know what I want to say. But I would like to…

AMANPOUR: You said and you tweeted — you tweeted “Justice for Jamal” in one of those beautiful pictures that you put out.

CENGIZ: Yes, I took it in our house. I took it, yes, and most beautiful picture of Jamal. So I would like to see the world leaders to take an action for justice for Jamal. I can say that just now.

AMANPOUR: Well, look, Hatice, we appreciate you coming on. It’s an incredibly emotional moment, obviously, for you. And you have had to live with this for all these years. But your activism for him, everybody in the world hears. And now this is one more step towards proving what happened to him. Hatice Cengiz, thank you very much for being with us this evening. Sarah Leah, let me get back to you, Sarah Leah Whitson. You hear the emotion, obviously, in Hatice’s voice. She said, now with this official report from American intelligence, the hope that she held out beyond hope that maybe something would be different and that he would come back has now been fully extinguished. Emotionally, what does this report dropping mean to you, who also was his friend?

SARAH LEAH WHITSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEMOCRACY FOR THE ARAB WORLD NOW: Well, I mean, it’s — it really does revive the shock and horror that we felt on the day that he was disappeared into the Saudi Consulate.