Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Saudi to execute five over murder of rebel journalist
But 3 agents close to Crown Prince cleared
FIVE people have been sentenced to death over the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.
Three others have been jailed for 24 years each – but a further three, who are close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, were cleared.
Human rights organisation Amnesty called the verdict a “whitewash” that “brings neither justice nor the truth”.
Columnist Mr
Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, last year.
The dissident had gone to collect documents to let him wed his Turkish fiancee.
The hit by a team of Saudi agents is widely suspected to have been ordered by bin Salman after Khashoggi had criticised the ruler in several newspaper articles.
The names of the 11 defendants have not been made public and the trials were carried out in Saudi Arabia in near-total secrecy.
Several of the Saudi agents worked directly for bin Salman, but the kingdom denies he knew of the plan. Yasin Aktay, a member of Turkey’s ruling party, said: “The prosecutor sentenced five hitmen to death but did not touch those who were behind the five.”
A YOUNG boy is guaranteed to be on Santa’s good list tomorrow after he saved up his pocket money to buy Christmas gifts for pensioners.
Eight-year-old Lewis Mccartney receives £5 whenever his grandfather visits, and instead of spending it himself, he saved it all up to buy presents for residents of a sheltered housing scheme in East Belfast.
On Monday, he visited Choice Housing’s Elmgrove Manor on the Beersbridge Road with his mother Rebecca and little brother Reece, five.
Lewis said: “I like being nice to people, lots of people don’t get any help and I just wanted to help”.
Resident Jim Stitt said: “For two young boys their age, it was amazing they would think of something like this.”