Who is the Saudi national, named Khaled Aedh Al-Otaibi, arrested Tuesday, December 7 at Roissy airport, when he was about to board a flight to Riyadh? The answer to this question could have embarrassing diplomatic repercussions for Paris.
The French border police (PAF) say that the individual held in detention was part of the commando of fifteen agents who murdered the journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, by a lethal injection, on October 2, 2018, in Istanbul. The authorities of the kingdom say for their part that the arrested man has nothing to do with this case and ask for his immediate release. “The real Khaled Al-Otaibi and all the accused in this case are imprisoned within the kingdom”, a Saudi security source told AFP.
The imbroglio comes three days after President Emmanuel Macron’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Salman, known as “MBS”, in Riyadh. A tête-à-tête very criticized by human rights organizations who accused the French head of state of “rehabilitating” the one the CIA considers to be the sponsor of the Istanbul operation.
“Beeped” on the PAF computer
It was 9:20 am Tuesday, when Khaled Al-Otaibi’s passport “beeped” on the Charles de Gaulle PAF computer. His name is registered in the wanted persons file (RPF) and is the subject of a red notice from Interpol, under an arrest and extradition warrant for acts “Assassination” issued by the Turkish authorities. As is the procedure in these cases, the Saudi traveler was placed in “Judicial detention”, a form of police custody which can last up to 48 hours.
A man named Khaled Al-Otaibi, a member of the Saudi Royal Guard, did take part in the bloody Istanbul outfit. On October 2, 2018, according to the report by Agnès Callamard, the UN expert who investigated the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, this agent was posted in the residence of the Saudi consul in Istanbul. It was there that the commando got rid of the journalist’s body, probably by dissolving it in acid, after its dismemberment in the consulate, carried out by a forensic doctor, who arrived from Riyadh with a bone saw.
On October 21, after three weeks of denial, the Saudi authorities finally admitted the death of Jamal Khashoggi, speaking of an operation having gone badly, carried out by elements out of control, without the approval of MBS, who had nevertheless already, at that time, the upper hand over the security services. Khaled Al-Otaibi was imprisoned with all the other members of the commando as well as employees of the consulate and the number two of the Saudi intelligence services.
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