The widow of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi has obtained political asylum in the U.S. more than five years after his murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to multiple news reports.
Hanan Elatr, who filed an asylum application in the U.S. in 2020, expressed relief at the decision which was released on Nov. 28, according to documents reviewed by the BBC.
“I can feel more safe now that I’m not afraid to be handed over to any dictator in the Middle East,” she told The New York Times in an interview.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), one of the lawmakers who pushed for Elatr’s petition to be approved, also welcomed the news in a statement shared with the Post.
“Hanan Khashoggi has the clearest case for political asylum imaginable, and I am happy that I could help her get this vital protection,” Beyer said.
Elatr, a former flight attendant for the Emirates airline who is from Egypt but had lived in the UAE for over 25 years, said she wasn’t safe in either country because of her connection to Khashoggi.
Elatr said Egyptian authorities seized her passport, and threatened her and members of her family, while UAE officials installed spyware on her phone just months before Khashoggi was killed.
A lawsuit Elatr brought against NSO group, the company behind the Pegasus spyware software, which denied wrongdoing, was dismissed in the fall, but her lawyer told the Times she has plans to appeal.
Elatr is also seeking compensation from the Saudi government and has called on Turkey’s government to hand over Khashoggi’s devices.
The CIA determined that Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 in an assassination plot ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi, a U.S. permanent resident, had been a critic of Mohammed.
The U.S. failed to take action against Mohammed and shielded him from another lawsuit, claiming he had sovereign immunity as Saudi prime minister.
While now-President Joe Biden had said he would make the Saudis “pay the price” over Khashoggi’s murder during his 2020 campaign, he has since shifted his stance. He fist-bumped Mohammed during a controversial visit to Saudi Arabia in July 2022. The two also exchanged a handshake in New Delhi at the Group of 20 Summit in September.