Saudi Arabia seeks death penalty for writer’s killers

DUbAI: Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor announced he’s recommended the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

Yesterday’s announcement by the kingdom’s top prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, appears aimed at distancing the killers and their operation from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose decision-making powers have placed in the centre of global outcry over the killing.

The announcement was published in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

The brutal death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who had been critical of the crown prince, has shocked the world and led many analysts and officials to believe it could not have been carried out without the prince’s knowledge.

Turkey says an assassination squad was sent from Riyadh for the writer and insists the orders for the killing came from the highest levels of the Saudi government, but not King Salman.

After issuing the statement, the spokesman for al-Mojeb’s office, Shalan al-Shalan, said in Riyadh that Khashoggi’s killers had set in motion plans for the killing on Sept 29 – three days before his slaying in Istanbul.

He says the killers drugged and killed the writer inside the consulate, before dismembering the body and handing it over for disposal by an unidentified local collaborator.