Tuesday, December 7th, 2021
Investigators strike in Paris
Suspected Khashoggi murderer arrested
The journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in 2018 – his body was never found. Parts of the killer squad are still wanted by international arrest warrant. In Paris, the French police make another arrest.
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 at Roissy airport in the morning 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.
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.
Macron visits Saudi crown prince despite assassination attempt
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.