Iran Press/Europe: Slamming exoneration of Saudi crown prince’s inner circle of involvement in the gruesome murder of the insider journalist, Investigator Agnes Callamard tweeted on Monday that the masterminds "walk free".
“Under international human rights law, the killing of Khashoggi was an extrajudicial execution for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible. Bottom line: the hitmen are guilty, sentenced to death. The masterminds not only walk free. They have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial. That is the antithesis of justice. It is a mockery.”
On Monday, a court in Riyadh sentenced five of the 11 unnamed individuals indicted in the case to death and three to 24-year jail terms, while it acquitted the rest.
Khashoggi’s assassination by government operatives at the Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul in 2018 plunged the kingdom into its worst diplomatic crisis since the 9/11 attacks.
Turkish Foreign Ministry said the judgment was “far from meeting … expectations” on delivering justice. President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an’s top press aide, Fahrettin Alt?n, tweeted: “To claim that a handful of intelligence operatives committed this murder is to mock the world’s intelligence.”
Also, the Paris-based media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders said justice was "trampled" on with the death sentence meted out Monday to five Saudi defendants for the murder of Khashoggi, AFP reported.
The group's secretary-general, Christophe Deloire, tweeted that the sentences "can be interpreted as a means to permanently silence the suspects, a way to prevent them from speaking to better cover up the truth."
Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince allegedly sent a terrorist team to Istanbul, who tortured and murdered Khashoggi at the Saudi mission.
Although Riyadh initially denied any role in the murder, it turned out that members of the terror team dispatched to Istanbul were personal bodyguards of the crown prince.
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