5 Saudis face death penalty over killing of Khashoggi
Prosecution statement cites 11 suspects charged, but details of alleged roles still unknown
BEIRUT— Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor on Thursday formally requested the death penalty for five suspects in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, but provided no new information about the murder.
The killing of Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul has badly tarnished the international reputation of the kingdom and of its crown prince and day-to-day ruler, Mohammed bin Salman.
After weeks of insisting that Khashoggi had left the consulate alive on Oct. 2, the kingdom finally acknowledged in November that its agents had killed and dismembered him, and vowed to hold the perpetrators accountable.
After the first court session in the case on Thursday, the public prosecutor’s office released a statement saying it had requested the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects charged.
It did not provide any of the suspects’ names, or any details about what role they might have played in the crime.
Nor did the statement explain why the prosecutor had sought the death penalty against some but not others.
Turkish officials and investigations by the New York Times have found that Khashoggi’s killing was the result of a complex operation that involved at least 15 agents who flew into Turkey specifically for the job, many of them closely connected to Crown Prince Mohammed.
They included intelligence agents who had travelled with the crown prince, a physician who specialized in autopsies and brought a bone saw, and a body double who donned Khashoggi’s clothes and walked around Istanbul seeking to leave a false trail of evidence that he was still alive.
Saudi Arabia has insisted that despite the complexity of the operation, the decision to kill Khashoggi, 59, was made by the team on the ground and had not been ordered by their superiors in Riyadh.
Khashoggi had been close to the Saudi royal family before Crown Prince Mo- hammed’s rise to power.
He moved to the United States and became a public critic of the Saudi government, writing columns for the Washington Post.
Demonstrating that it will hold accountable those responsible for Khashoggi’s killing is expected to be a crucial part of the kingdom’s efforts to move past the scandal.
It has complicated its foreign relations and scared off western investors it was counting on to support its cultural and economic reform plans.
But it remains unclear whether the trial, and the lack of public information about the legal proceedings, will quell worries in the West about Saudi Arabia’s respect for the rule of law.
The kingdom’s courts enforce a strict interpretation of Shariah, the legal code of Islam based on the Qur’an, but are also easily influenced by the country’s royal leaders, critics say.
While the Trump administration, which considers the kingdom under Crown Prince Mohammed’s leadership an important ally in the Middle East, has stood by the prince, U.S. intelligence services and members of Congress believe he ordered the killing.
The Saudi statement did not say when the next hearing would take place.
It said the suspects appeared with their lawyers and were given copies of the charges against them.