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The fiancée of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi has said she is “shocked” and “so sad” after the Premier League allowed a Saudi-led consortium to take over at Newcastle United.
Khashoggi, an exiled Saudi journalist who was a frequent critic of the Arab kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was murdered in October 2018.
An intelligence report, contributed to mostly by the CIA, concluded that bin Salman is likely to have approved an operation to kill or capture the journalist inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Saudi Arabia denied this and offered a number of different explanations before eventually settling on saying he was killed in a rogue operation by a rendition squad. Five people were sentenced to death after a secret trial, Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor said.
Before the takeover of Newcastle United was approved, Khashoggi’s death and human rights abuses were highlighted by Amnesty International as reasons why the Premier League should not allow a Saudi-led consortium to buy the club.
Hatice Cengiz – a Turkish national who was engaged to marry Khashoggi – told Sky News: “It is so sad, it is a real shame for Newcastle and English football.”
Jamal Khashoggi was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018
The Premier League said it allowed the £300m deal to be agreed after it received “legally binding assurances that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will not control” the club.
Amanda Staveley, who now sits on the board of Newcastle United as chief executive officer of PCP Capital Partners, said Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which now has an 80% stake in the club, is a sovereign wealth fund independent of the gulf nation.
She told Sky Sports…
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Source : skynews
