Suspect in journalist Khashoggi’s killing arrested in France

FRANCE: French police on Tuesday arrested a suspected member of the hit squad that killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as the man was about to board a flight from Paris to Riyadh, French law enforcement sources said.

Khashoggi’s fiancee welcomed the detention of the suspect and said he should be prosecuted for his role in the 2018 killing. But the Saudi Embassy in Paris said the arrested person “has nothing to do with the case in question.”

“Therefore the Kingdom’s embassy expects his immediate release,” it said in a statement. A French police source and a judicial source named the man as Khaled Aedh Al-Otaibi – the same name as a former member of the Saudi Royal Guard who is identified in US and British sanctions lists, and a UN-commissioned report, as having been involved in Khashoggi’s killing.

The police who detained him were acting on a 2019 arrest warrant issued by Turkey, the country where Khashoggi was killed, according to the police source.

Last year, a Saudi court jailed eight people for between seven and 20 years over the killing, but none of the defendants was named. The trial was criticised by a UN official and human rights campaigners who said the masterminds of the murder remained free.

– THE STATESMAN