Khashoggi ruling ‘a mockery’: UN
Court ignores Saudi elites’ role in murder
BEIRUT: Saudi Arabia’s decision to sentence five men to death and three to prison terms over the killing of the Saudi dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul has been dismissed as punishing low-level agents while protecting their leaders.
The sentences, announced by a government spokesman Monday, reflected the Saudi argument that the killing was not ordered by the royal court, but was instead a last-minute decision by agents on the ground — a narrative that contradicts ample indications that the agents arrived in Istanbul last year with an intent to kill and the tools to do so.
While subject to appeal, the verdicts also raised the possibility that Saudi Arabia could behead the men who carried out the killing while shielding those who ordered it. The kingdom has denied any involvement by its crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, and his top aides, who foreign analysts say were probably behind the killing.
A United Nations expert who investigated the killing dismissed the verdicts as “a mockery”.
The death of Khashoggi, 59, a veteran Saudi journalist who fled the kingdom and wrote columns for The Washington Post, caused international outrage and battered the image of Crown Prince Mohammed as a young ruler working to open up his kingdom’s economy and society.
The kingdom’s handling of the case has raised further concerns. Turkey has accused Saudi Arabia of impeding the investigation, and a UN investigator said the kingdom’s actions could amount to obstruction of justice.
The trial, held in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, was shrouded in secrecy. The kingdom did not reveal the suspects’ names, and foreign diplomats who attended sessions of the trial were sworn to silence.
Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct 2, 2018, to obtain paperwork he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. Inside, he was confronted by Saudi agents, who killed him and dismembered his body. His remains have yet to be found.
On Monday, a spokesman for the kingdom’s public prosecutor told reporters in Riyadh that no evidence had been found that the killing had been planned ahead of time. Instead, he said, agents had been sent to Istanbul to “negotiate” with Khashoggi and decided to kill him after that effort failed.
But investigations by the Turkish authorities and a UN expert found vast evidence of premeditation, such as the arrival of 15 Saudi agents in Istanbul in the hours before Khashoggi’s killing. They included a body double who sought to leave a false trail of surveillance video indicating that Khashoggi was still alive, and a forensic doctor who the Turks say arrived with a bone saw that was used to dismember Khashoggi’s body.
On Monday, special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions for the
UN human rights agency, Agnes Callamard, criticised the verdicts, saying that the prosecutor had ignored evidence of premeditation and did not treat the killing as sanctioned by the state.
“Bottom line: the hit-men are guilty, sentenced to death,” she wrote. “The
masterminds not only walk free. They have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial. That is the antithesis of justice. It is a mockery.”
On Twitter, one of Khashoggi’s adult children, Salah Khashoggi, who lives in Saudi Arabia, praised the Saudi judges as “fair”.