Arab Media: Murderer of Khashoggi Returns to Power Again
Arab media outlets disclosed on Tuesday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has secretly called back Saud al-Qahtani, the former royal court advisor and the number one suspect of killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, to resume his services to the throne.
The twitter page of the Arabic-language al-Ahd al-Jadid reported that al-Qahtani, a close friend of bin Salman, has been reappointed and returned to his office at the royal court two years after he was called off the stage after his role in Khashoggi’s death was exposed.
King Salman had dismissed Qahtani after Khashoggi’s case but he and a number of key officials who were suspects of the Saudi journalist’s murder were never put on trial.
Khashoggi, a former advocate of the Saudi royal court who had become a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, was killed and his body dismembered by a Saudi hit squad in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, where he had gone to obtain documents for his impending wedding.
The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi was a columnist, reported in November that year that the CIA had concluded that bin Salman personally ordered his killing.
Agnes Callamard, the United Nations special rapporteur for extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, has said there was credible evidence that the crown prince and other ranking Saudi officials were individually liable. She has called for an independent and impartial international inquiry into the foul play.
In September, a court in Saudi Arabia handed 20-year prison sentences to five people, while sentencing another three to seven to 10 years in jail.
The ruling was rejected by a United Nations (UN) expert as a “parody of justice”.
Riyadh has spurned all the allegations linking the killing to bin Salman and instead claimed that the murder was committed by a “rogue” group.
