Prosecutors call for the death penalty as Khashoggi trial opens
Saudi prosecutors are calling for the death penalty for five men accused of planning and carrying out the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year.
The Criminal Court in Riyadh held the first session for the 11 accused on Thursday, the Saudi state news agency said.
The public prosecutor also said Turkey had been asked to provide evidence for the trial, but no reply had yet been received.
Jamal Khashoggi, a former government insider turned self-exiled critic of Saudi policy and who wrote for The Washington Post, was killed on October 2 last year after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
His disappearance and death caused an international outcry.
The Saudi government is creating three bodies to increase oversight of intelligence operations
The Saudi government’s top prosecutor said in November, a month and a half after Khashoggi’s disappearance, that he would be seeking the death penalty for five of the 11 accused. Official reports of the trial did not detail exactly who was included in the case that opened on Thursday. But Saudi officials said Khashoggi was killed in a 15-man “rogue operation” led by the deputy intelligence chief Ahmed Al Asiri and royal court adviser Saud Al Qahtani.
Both former officials have been sacked and both were slapped with sanctions by the US Treasury Department in mid-November.
Members of the Saudi government deny that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the killing of Khashoggi.
Khashoggi’s body, believed to have been dismembered, has not been found.
Saudi Arabia rejected Turkey’s demands to deport Saudi suspects connected to the case. The kingdom is creating three government bodies to increase oversight of its intelligence operations.