Wednesday, December 8th, 2021
Arrest of Khashoggi murderer
Saudis suggest confusing names
The French border police arrest a suspected member of the killer squad who murdered journalist Khashoggi. Chalid A. was wanted by an international arrest warrant. The Saudis affirm the innocence of the arrested. Chalid A. is already in prison.
Saudi Arabia has sharply criticized the arrest of an alleged person responsible for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Paris. “The citizen in question has no connection to the matter,” said the Saudi Arabian embassy in Paris on Twitter. Those responsible for the murder have already been convicted in Saudi Arabia and the man must be released immediately.
The French border police arrested a man at Roissy airport on Tuesday morning who, according to judicial sources, had identified himself as 33-year-old Chalid A. for a flight to Riyadh. He was arrested because of an international arrest warrant issued by Turkey. It should be brought before the French judiciary on Wednesday, it said.
According to information from security circles in Saudi Arabia, Chalid A., who is connected to the Khashoggi case, is in prison there. “There are hundreds of Saudis with the exact same name. It’s a huge tribe that is spread across the kingdom.”
According to French security circles, checks were still ongoing on Tuesday evening to ensure that the arrested person’s identity is correct and that the arrest warrant applies to him. The French authorities are legally allowed to detain the man for up to 48 hours. If it is the wanted person, it could take weeks for judges to examine an extradition to Turkey.
International dispute in the investigation
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.
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.