UN Indicts Prince Salman, Other Officials Over Khashoggi’s Murder

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, World News Wednesday, June 19th, 2019

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – There is credible evidence that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other high-level officials are individually liable for the killing of prominent journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

A report by special UN rapporteur Agnes Callamard says the evidence merits further investigation by an independent and impartial international inquiry.

Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by Saudi agents.

Saudi authorities insist they were not acting on Prince Mohammed’s orders.

The Gulf kingdom has put 11 unidentified people on trial behind closed doors for Khashoggi’s murder and is seeking the death penalty for five of them.

However, Ms Callamard said the trial failed to meet international procedural and substantive standards and called for it to be suspended.

The 58-year-old journalist, a US-based columnist for the Washington Post and prominent critic of Prince Mohammed, was last seen entering the Saudi consulate on 2 October to obtain papers he needed to marry his fiancée Hatice Cengiz.

Ms Callamard, a UN expert on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Khashoggi was “brutally slain” inside the consulate on the fateful day.