Saudi Court Sentences Five to Death for Killing of Jamal Khashoggi, Exonerates Top Aides to Crown Prince

Tobias Hoonhout

Following a closed trial, Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor announced Monday that five men had been sentenced to death for the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In addition, three more people were sentenced to jail terms totaling 24 years. But two aides to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman — who ordered the killing, according to the CIA — were found innocent.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi government who lived in voluntary exile in the U.S., was killed in October 2018 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to finalize divorce paperwork so he could marry his fianceé. She waited for hours outside but never saw him come out.

The Saudi government originally denied any knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate but later admitted that he was murdered at the consulate in what they claimed was a “rogue operation” they had not authorized, an argument the court echoed in its ruling.

On Monday, Shalaan al-Shalaan, a spokesman for the Saudi public prosecutor, claimed that the investigation showed “there was no prior intention to kill at the start of this mission.” He also claimed the killing was a “snap decision.”

The court cleared two senior aides, Saud al-Qahtani and Ahmed al-Assiri, of any involvement.

Qahtani, a media adviser to the crown prince, was “investigated by the public prosecutor and was not charged because of lack of evidence against him,” Shalaan said.

Assiri, Saudi Arabia’s former deputy head of intelligence, was initially charged after prosecutors said he was responsible for issuing an order to force Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia. But Shalaan said that Assiri’s guilt “was not proved.”

Following the verdict, human-rights watchdog Amnesty International called the decision “a whitewash” and accused Saudi officials of failing the slain journalist and his family.

“This verdict . . . brings neither justice nor the truth for Jamal Khashoggi and his loved ones. The trial has been closed to the public and to independent monitors, with no information available as to how the investigation was carried out,” Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director, said in a statement.

“The verdict fails to address the Saudi authorities’ involvement in this devastating crime or clarify the location of Jamal Khashoggi’s remains,” Maalouf added.

The Post’s publisher Fred Ryan also released a statement on the “sham” decison.

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