Turkish prosecutors have charged two former top aides of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and 18 other Saudis over the 2018 murder of journalist and Riyadh critic Jamal Khashoggi, officials said Wednesday.
The kingdom’s deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri and royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani are accused of leading the operation and giving orders to a hit team to kill the Washington Post columnist.
An indictment charges the two with “instigating a premeditated murder with the intent of (causing) torment through fiendish instinct,” according to a statement from Chief Prosecutor Irfan Fidan’s office.
It also calls for life prison sentences for 18 other Saudis charged with carrying out “a premeditated murder with the intent of (causing) torment through fiendish instincts.”
The 18 suspects are accused of “acting in consensus from the beginning in line with the decision of taking the victim back to Saudi Arabia and of killing him if he did not agree.”
The group includes intelligence operative Maher Mutreb, forensic expert Salah al-Tubaigy and Fahad al-Balawi, a member of the Saudi royal guard, who were among 11 people on trial in Riyadh.
Western officials said many of the suspects claimed they were carrying out Assiri’s orders, describing him as the ringleader.
The Turkish prosecutor said a trial in absentia would be opened against the 20 suspects but did not provide a date.
Khashoggi was murdered on Oct. 2, 2018, in what Riyadh called a “rogue” operation by Saudi agents, plunging the kingdom into one of its worst diplomatic crises and tarnishing the reputation of the crown prince, the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
The 59-year-old Saudi insider-turned-critic was strangled and his body cut into pieces by a 15-man squad inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone to receive papers ahead of his wedding to his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz.
His remains have not been found.
The CIA has concluded that bin Salman ordered his operatives to carry out the grisly murder.
After initial denials, Riyadh blamed the murder on the rogue operatives — and bin Salman has said in a PBS “Frontline” documentary that he bears responsibility “because it happened under my watch,” but without his knowledge.
Turkey carried out its own probe after being unsatisfied with Saudi Arabia’s explanations.
The Istanbul prosecutor’s office said Assiri and Qahtani were charged with “instigating the deliberate and monstrous killing, causing torment.”
In December, five unnamed people were sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia, while three others were slapped with prison terms totaling 24 years over the killing.
On Wednesday, the UN human rights investigator who led an international probe into the murder welcomed the indictment, saying it was needed as a “counter balance to the travesty of justice at the hands of Saudi Arabia.”
In a statement to Reuters, Agnes Callamard, the UN rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, urged US authorities to release their findings on responsibility for Khashoggi’s death, “including the responsibility of Saudi Arabia crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.”
With Post wires