A witness told a Turkish court on Tuesday that murdered Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi had been receiving threats from a former adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to court observers.
Khashoggi had reported being threatened by Saud al-Qahtani, the witness told the second trial against 26 suspects at an Istanbul court, Christian Mihr from the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) told dpa.
"Khashoggi spoke of a phone call from Qahtani when he was living in Washington DC, saying he knew his kids & where they lived," RSF Director of International Campaigns Rebecca Vincent separately tweeted.
Ayman Nour, an Egyptian political dissident and longtime friend of Khashoggi, told the court that the journalist had described to him being personally threatened by the Saudi media czar.
"Jamal said he had been threatened by Qahtani and his family," Turkish media quoted Nour as telling the court.
"Nour said Khashoggi had reported being threatened by Saud al-Qahtani since 2016," Rebecca Vincent of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) separately tweeted from the courtroom.
"Khashoggi spoke of a phone call from Qahtani when he was living in Washington DC, saying he knew his kids and where they lived. Nour said Khashoggi was crying, which was unusual, and said he was afraid."
The trial against 26 suspects in absentia was adjourned to March 4.
Khashoggi was killed in 2018 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting outside.
The 59-year-old was suffocated and dismembered inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate on October 2, 2018 after going inside to get documents for his marriage to Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz.
The murder sparked an international outcry and tarnished the reputation of the oil-rich kingdom and the crown prince.
The remains of the Washington Post columnist, a vocal critic of the crown prince, were never found.
The Turkish trial is being held separately from a Saudi one that overturned five death sentences issued after a closed-door hearing in September.
The first hearing at Istanbul's Çağlayan courthouse started in July, initially against 20 Saudi nationals, including Qahtani and Ahmed al-Asiri, ex-deputy chief of Saudi intelligence.
Prosecutors accuse both of "instigating premeditated murder with monstrous intent."
Turkey issued a second indictment in September against six further Saudi nationals, demanding between five years to life imprisonment.
Earlier in September, a Saudi court sentenced five defendants to 20 years in prison, commuting the death sentences issued last year.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said the order to murder Khashoggi came from "the highest levels" of the Saudi government.
Relations between the two countries suffered in the wake of Khashoggi's death.
