WASHINGTON >> The widow of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist killed by Saudi operatives at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018, was granted political asylum late last month, more than three years after she fled to the United States.

“I feel great and that I’ve taken the right decision to come to this country,” his widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, said in an interview. “I can feel more safe now that I’m not afraid to be handed over to any dictator in the Middle East.”

Hanan Khashoggi, who was born in Egypt and married Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, fled from the United Arab Emirates to the United States in July 2020.

Her successful petition for asylum is one of the few recent reminders of the fallout from the killing, which drew international outrage and strained ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia but never led to a permanent rupture.

Those close to Jamal Khashoggi have continued to push for penalties on those they believe played a role, even as relations between the kingdom and the United States have started to rebound.

Hanan Khashoggi, whose successful petition was reported earlier by the Post, applied for political asylum in August 2020, saying she feared for her safety outside the United States. Khashoggi said she had been on the receiving end of threats and intimidation, was under surveillance and had been put under house arrest twice in the United Arab Emirates because she was close to Jamal Khashoggi.

The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a legal permanent resident of Virginia who was critical of the Saudi government in his columns, was approved by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler, according to an intelligence report released by the Biden administration in 2021.

The administration took no direct action against Crown Prince Mohammed after releasing the report, instead announcing travel and financial sanctions on other Saudis involved in the killing and on members of the elite unit of the royal guard that protects the crown prince.

The administration concluded it could not risk a full rupture of its relationship with the kingdom. Biden, who as a candidate vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for ordering the killing, said he brought up the killing when he met with Crown Prince Mohammed as president.