A number of US lawmakers are seeking to pass legislation seeking justice for the assassination of Khashoggi and preventing the recurrence of such killings.
Democratic US lawmakers from Virginia, where Khashoggi lived, proposed the bill to Congress; A law that seeks to protect the Saudi opposition against repression and actions by Saudi officials.
Another US envoy from Texas, Michael Maxwell, backed the bill and both submitted it to the House of Representatives.
“Khashoggi is a part of me,” said Virginia Representative Jerry Connolly. We must not forget his brutal murder and justice must prevail. “The draft law will be a tool that will ultimately lead us to justice.”
The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the bill by a virtual vote on Thursday, which would pave the way for a full vote in the House of Representatives.
The bill is an amended and broader version of a bill that Connolly proposed earlier in Congress but was rejected by Republicans.
The US intelligence service last month published a report on the case of Khashgechi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to which Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman agreed in 2018 to arrest or assassinate him in Istanbul.
The Biden government later boycotted a number of Saudi officials, declaring that 76 Saudi citizens and their families were not allowed to travel to the United States. However, Biden avoided taking any action against the Saudi Crown Prince, who ordered the assassination.
The Biden administration justified its action by saying that its goal was not to sever ties with the Saudis, but merely to reconsider them, and that the White House had put the human rights issue in Saudi Arabia at the center of its talks with Riyadh.
