Murdered journalist
Suspect arrested while searching for Khashoggi killers in Paris
Jamal Kashoggi was murdered in the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul in 2018
© MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH / AFP
Three years ago, the government-critical Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Turkey. Now a suspected member of the killer squad has been arrested.
The French border police have arrested a suspected member of the killer squad in Paris, which is believed to have been responsible for the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The 33-year-old Khalid A. was arrested on Tuesday morning at Roissy Airport when he was about to take a flight to Riyadh, according to judicial circles.
The man was being held on an international arrest warrant issued by Turkey. He is to be brought before the judiciary on Wednesday.
The 59-year-old government critic Khashoggi was murdered on October 2, 2018 in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. He had an appointment there to prepare for the wedding with his fiancée, a Turkish citizen. According to official information from Turkey and the USA, a 15-man squad was waiting at the mission, murdered him and had his body disappeared.
Saudi Arabia admitted killing
Both a UN special envoy and the US intelligence agency, the CIA, had come to the conclusion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was directly implicated in Khashoggi’s assassination. This was vehemently rejected from Riyadh, but the case brought the de facto ruler under massive international pressure.
In 2018, after weeks of denials, Riyadh finally admitted that Khashoggi had been killed “in an unsuccessful mission to arrest him”. Five death sentences were passed in a trial in Saudi Arabia, which were later commuted to prison terms.
French President Emmanuel Macron met with the Saudi Crown Prince in Jeddah last week, despite the allegations. “We were of course also able to address the issue of human rights,” Macron said after his meeting with bin Salman. The coming weeks and months will show “whether we are making progress on this issue”.
Macron was one of the first Western heads of state or government to visit the Crown Prince since the assassination of Khashoggi. The French President referred to the “demographic, economic, historical and religious weight” of the arch-conservative Gulf state. The regional power Saudi Arabia is an important opponent of Shiite Iran.