Jamal Khashoggi, a symbol

The murder that took place exactly one year ago today was, in fact, just one of the hundreds, thousands of murders that take place in the world every day, if we are speaking of a human being being killed unjustly, cruelly, savagely. Is not every murder in itself cruel, tyrannical, savage? Is not killing one human being like killing all of humanity?

Every murder is in truth a crime committed against all of humanity, and it carries enough of its own wickedness within itself.

The fact that so many murders are committed, that we hear of so many murders and witness so many, produces in us an indifference toward murders and almost leads us to normalize them. Mercy, too, is dulled in this way, little by little.

Who said that today's media order creates more sensitivity? Even if the sensitivities that arise show their effect quickly, they die out like a flame of straw, and what remains is forgetting. Especially to the extent that these events occur one after another, the dangerous habit they create brings about the normalization of evil, the commonplace-ization of even murder.

It is true that the Khashoggi murder is one of the murders that human beings, at a certain level of degradation, may have the disposition to commit. But among all murders we single out Cain's killing of Abel, as a murder like the death of all humanity.

We single out Yazid's slaughter of Hz. Hussein, as a tragedy, as a great sorrow, as a Karbala engraved in the minds of all the Islamic generations after it... As a murder that has a share in the guilt of all the murders committed after it, as a great fitna sown into the history of the entire Muslim nation...

The Khashoggi murder is just this kind of murder. A crime committed against a body in which all of humanity was embodied, a murder committed against humanity. A murder that curses its killers and that confers upon its victim, at the level of humanity, superior ranks. The Karbala of our age.

On the 2nd of October, a man who was trying to build a new life, trusting the consulate of his own country, entered it without knowing what would befall him. Since he saw no reason not to trust, he trusted, and surrendered himself with his whole being to the security his country promised. As he entered through the door, he was searched by security to check whether he was carrying on him any object that could threaten the safety of those inside. In this way it was ensured that he had no weapon with which he could even defend himself against the 15 criminals who would mercilessly slaughter him.

When Khashoggi went inside, at the first encounter with the killers who had come to receive him, he seems to have guessed what might happen to him. Those who came had not come to abduct him; this is very clear from the fact that they did not spend much effort trying to persuade him. The whole operation had been planned beforehand in order to kill him. There was a plan made to kill him, to dismember him and to take him out of the consulate in pieces; this is very clear. There was no decision made on the spot. There was neither the time nor the authority to make such a decision on the spot and put it into such organized execution.

Those who came came with full authority, and that too is very clear. There is an authority coming from a position high enough to set aside all the powers of a consulate that takes orders from the Foreign Ministry, and to make it turn a blind eye to, even assist in, the commission of a murder in that space.

Even if we knew nothing else, we can see that this authority is an authority greater even than that of the Foreign Minister. It would not fit any reason or logic that those 15 people, or the consul, or Kahtani, who assigned them and whose words "I cannot even go to the toilet without the crown prince's permission" were recently put on record, or Asiri, made this decision alone.

Besides, there is much stronger evidence in hand that refutes and contradicts this story that fits no logic anyway. The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has not yet said its last word. The Chief Prosecutor's Office, which has issued arrest warrants for Kahtani and Asiri, will it go beyond them as well? We shall see.

As Turkey, in the face of this murder, without any calculation we said "justice" and we said "only justice." In terms of our approach to this affair, we displayed the most principled stance possible. Our esteemed President's attitude on this issue, his approach that treated the incident within a legal rather than a political framework, was met with great appreciation all over the world.

The Khashoggi murder, with its aspect that quickly became a symbol, in fact also exposed the powers, privileges and intrigues exploited by the perpetrators of this kind of murder committed in our age. Talking about the Khashoggi murder now also means talking about a dirty order that continues in our world. The world that kills innocent people in Syria, in Myanmar, in Yemen, in Libya, in Egypt, in Kashmir is the very same world that killed Khashoggi, or the reverse.

As is known, Khashoggi had given my name to be notified if anything happened to him. When I was notified, he had already become a martyr. For that reason I took those words of his as a testament to carry on the cause for which he fought. Whatever I have written, done and said has been in the name of this testament, and will continue to be.