Saudi prosecutor seeks death penalty for five suspects
Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor announced on Thursday 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.
The 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 center of global outcry over the killing. The announcement was published in a statement carried by the staterun 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,
DUBAI:
the spokesman for al-Mojeb’s office, Shalan al-Shalan, told reporters on Thursday in Riyadh that Khashoggi’s killers had set in motion plans for the killing on September 29 — three days before his slaying in Istanbul.
SAUDI EXPLANATION INSUFFICIENT: TURKEY
Turkey on Thursday said the Saudi statement over the murder of Khashoggi was “insufficient” and insisted that the killing was “premeditated”.
“We find all those steps positive but insufficient,” foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a televised speech.