Saudi court renders final verdicts on murder of Jamal Khashoggi

A Saudi court issued final verdicts Monday in the case of Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi after his son, who still resides in the kingdom, announced pardons that saved five of those convicted from execution.

While the trial reaches its conclusion in Saudi Arabia, the case continues to cast a shadow over the international standing of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose associates have been sanctioned by the United States and the United Kingdom for their alleged involvement in the brutal murder, which took place. inside the Consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul.

The final verdicts of the Riyadh Criminal Court were announced by Saudi Arabia’s state television, which broadcast some details about the eight Saudi nationals and did not name them.

The court ordered a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the five. Another individual received a 10-year sentence and two others were ordered to serve seven years in prison.

A team of 15 Saudi agents had flown to Turkey to meet Khashoggi inside the consulate for their appointment on October 2, 2018 to collect the documents that would allow her to marry her Turkish fiancé, who was waiting outside. The team included a medical examiner, intelligence and security officers and individuals working directly for the crown prince’s office, according to Agnes Callamard, who investigated the murder for the United Nations.

Turkish officials allege that Khashoggi was killed and then dismembered with a bone saw inside the consulate. His body has not been found. Turkey apparently had the consulate intervene and shared the audio of the assassination with the CIA, among others.

Western intelligence agencies, as well as the United States Congress, have said that the crown prince bears ultimate responsibility for the assassination and that an operation of this magnitude could not have occurred without his knowledge.

The 35-year-old prince denies knowledge of the operation and has condemned the murder. He continues to have the support of his father, King Salman, and remains popular with young Saudis at home. He also maintains the support of President Donald Trump, who has defended ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia in the face of international outrage over the assassination.

The trial of the suspects in Saudi Arabia has been widely criticized by human rights groups and observers, who say that no senior official or anyone suspected of ordering the killing has been found guilty. The independence of the Riyadh Criminal Court has also been questioned.

Callamard, the UN special rapporteur who investigated Khashoggi’s murder, told the AP in a statement that the crown prince has remained “well protected against any significant scrutiny in his country” and that high-level officials who organized the murder have been free from the start.

“These verdicts cannot be allowed to cover up what happened,” he said, calling on US intelligence services to publicly release their assessments of the crown prince’s liability. “While you cannot achieve formal justice in Saudi Arabia, you can tell the truth.”

A small number of diplomats, including from Turkey, as well as members of Khashoggi’s family, were allowed to attend the initial trial. Independent media and the public were banned.

Yasin Aktay, a high-ranking member of Turkey’s ruling party and friend of Khashoggi, criticized the final court rulings, saying that those who ordered the killing remain free as various questions about the journalist’s death remain unanswered.

He also said there were doubts as to whether those convicted of the murder are incarcerated.

“From what we’ve heard, the condemned roam free and live in luxury,” he said. “The truth of the matter is that this case should be tried in Turkey, not in Saudi Arabia.”

Saudi Arabia has tried 11 people in total, sentenced five to death in December and ordered three more to prison for covering up the crime. The crown prince’s top advisers at the time of the assassination, namely Saud al-Qahtani and intelligence officer Ahmed al-Asiri, were not found guilty.

The trial also concluded that the murder was not premeditated. That paved the way for Salah Khashoggi, one of the slain writer’s sons, to announce months later that the family had pardoned the murderers, essentially allowing all five to be pardoned from execution according to Islamic law.

Salah Khashoggi lives in Saudi Arabia and has received financial compensation from the royal court for the murder of his father.

Saudi Arabia initially offered changing versions of Khashoggi’s disappearance, including claiming to have surveillance video showing him leaving the consulate alive. As international pressure mounted due to Turkish leaks, the kingdom eventually settled on the explanation that he was killed by rogue officials in a fight inside the consulate.

Before his assassination, Khashoggi had been writing critically about Prince Mohammed in columns for the Washington Post at a time when the young heir to the throne was being widely acclaimed in the United States for pushing for social reforms and restraining the power of religious conservatives.

Dozens of suspected critics of the prince remain in prison, including women’s rights activists, and face trial on national security charges. Khashoggi left Saudi Arabia for the United States just as Prince Mohammed began arresting writers and critics in late 2017.

Other critics of the crown prince have said his safety has been threatened in the wake of Khashoggi’s murder. In one case, a former high-ranking intelligence official now residing in Canada claims in an American lawsuit that Prince Mohammed sent a similar strike squad to track down and kill him, but that they were stopped by Canadian border guards. – AP