The suspects in the killing of Journalist Jamal Khashoggi have on Thursday, appeared in their first court hearing in Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors are seeking death penalty for five of the 11 suspects, Saudi state agency said.
According to news reports, in a statement, Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor Saud al Mojeb said 21 people were are in custody over the killing of Khashoggi, with 11 of them indicted and facing trials.
According to the prosecutor’s spokesperson Shaalan al Shaalan, the highest-level official former deputy intelligence chief Ahmad al Assiri was accused of being involved into the murder.
Shaalan said Khashoggi’s alleged suspects has on 29 September set in the motion plans for the killing, just three days before Khashoggi died inside Saudi’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. His bode was not discovered, it was believed that his body has been dismembered.
The public office of prosecutor alleged killers and their murder operation from Saudi Arabia crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and also accused two Saudi senior officials of giving order of murder.
Shaalan denied any involvement of crown prince into the killing of Khashoggi.
Turkey considered the Saudi prosecutor’s statement over Khashoggi’s murder as “unsatisfactory”.
Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said: “I want to say that we did not find some of his explanations to be satisfactory,” adding that “those who gave the order, the real perpetrators need to be revealed. This process cannot be closed down in this way.”