Saudi Arabia to pay compensation to Khashoggi family, fiancee: Turkish official

Saudi Arabia has informed Turkey that it will pay compensation money to the family and fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Turkish official has revealed.

A Turkish source told Al-Jazeera on Tuesday that the Saudis would be paying a diya - a financial sum paid under Islamic law in compensation for murder or bodily harm - to Khashoggi's sons and his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz.

In an interview with CNN last week, Khashoggi’s sons, Salah and Abdullah, appealed for the return of their father’s body to be buried in his birthplace in Medina, Saudi Arabia. They said they trusted efforts by King Salman to bring those responsible to justice.

The brutal killing of Khashoggi has tarnished the image of powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose possible role in the assassination has been under heavy scrutiny.

The Saudis' story has changed repeatedly since that time, with the country's public prosecutor saying last week that Khashoggi's killing was premeditated.

Khashoggi was tortured, murdered and then dismembered in the consulate, Turkish officials have told Middle East Eye, and a senior aide to Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on Friday that the journalist's body had been dissolved in acid.

A Turkish source also told Al-Jazeera on Tuesday that Ankara had briefed CIA director Gina Haspel and European officials on the “full picture” of the Khashoggi murder, in an attempt to increase American and European pressure on Riyadh to disclose more details.

Haspel, who visited Turkey in late October over the Khashoggi killing, left with a conviction that the assassination was ordered by senior Saudi leadership, the official said.

On Monday, Turkey's pro-government daily Sabah reported that Saudi Arabia sent an 11-member "cover-up team" to Istanbul on 11 October, nine days after Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate to obtain paperwork for his marriage to Cengiz, a Turkish national.

The Saudi prosecutor has denied knowledge of the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains.

Western diplomats condemned the killing of Khashoggi at a public meeting at the UN Human Rights Council on Monday.

British ambassador to the UN, Julian Braithwaite, urged Riyadh to "ensure comprehensive and transparent investigations into the murder" and to make sure "those responsible are held to account, and that measures are put in place to prevent any possibility of recurrence".