The Latest: Merkel: Arms sales to Saudis are on hold

ISTANBUL — The Latest on the slaying of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (all times local):

5:30 p.m.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her country is not ready to export arms to Saudi Arabia until the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is properly investigated.

Speaking in Prague through a translator after meeting her Czech counterpart Andrej Babis, Merkel says it’s necessary to clarify the background of the crime that took place in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Merkel says Germany has made it clear that until then “we won’t deliver any arms to Saudi Arabia.”

Merkel also again said that Saudi Arabia has to ensure access for humanitarian aid to get into Yemen, which has been ravaged by a 3 ½-year war between the Saudi-led alliance and Shite rebels.

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4:30 p.m.

The fiancee of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi says she has not received any condolence call from Saudi officials after the writer was killed in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul.

Hatice Cengiz, who is Turkish, also said in an interview on Turkish television channel HaberTurk on Friday that she continually asks herself questions about Oct. 2, the day that Khashoggi entered the consulate and was killed by officials there.

Cengiz says: “I found myself in a darkness I cannot express.”

She says she had asked U.S. Secretary of State Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who called her about the case, whether he had any news that would make her happy.

“But he said he didn’t,” she says.

Khashoggi had gone to the consulate for paperwork related to his planned marriage to Cengiz. Saudi prosecutors have acknowledged that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. His body has not been found.

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12 noon

The Turkish president says Saudi Arabia’s chief prosecutor will arrive in Turkey on Sunday as part of the investigation into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that the Saudi official will meet Turkish prosecutors during his visit.

Erdogan also says Turkey has other “information and evidence” about the Khashoggi’s killing by Saudi officials in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, and that it will eventually reveal that information.

Saudi prosecutors said Thursday that Turkish evidence indicates that the killing was premeditated.

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9:50 a.m.

The son of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi has left Saudi Arabia after the kingdom revoked a travel ban and allowed him to come to the United States.

State Department spokesman Robert Palladino says Washington welcomes the decision.

It’s the latest turn in the saga of the killed Saudi writer and dissident after the kingdom on Thursday cited evidence showing that his killing was premeditated — changing its story again to try to ease international outrage over the macabre circumstances of Khashoggi’s Oct. 2 death at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had discussed the case of Khashoggi’s son, Salah Khashoggi, during his recent visit to the kingdom, making it “clear to Saudi leaders” that Washington wanted the son to return to the United States.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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