Saudi Court Sentences 5 To Death In Journalist Jamal Khashoggi's Murder Case

Five people were sentenced to death for the sensational murder of noted journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Monday. Another three persons have got jail terms totalling 24 years, latest media reports aid. Interestingly, top aide to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has not been charged in case, the prosecutor said. Khashoggi, a US-based writer who annoyed the prince through critical columns in The Washington Post, was strangled to death on October 2, 2018 and dismembered after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to handle wedding paperwork, according to US and Turkish officials. Khashoggi visited the consulate to secure the divorce papers needed to marry his fiancee but did not make it out alive.

In September, Sabah newspaper, considered close to Turkey's government, published new details of a recording of Khashoggi's conversation with members of a Saudi hit squad sent to kill him. The paper said the recording of Khashoggi's killing and reported dismemberment at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 was obtained by Turkey's intelligence agency. According to the report in Sabah, a member of the Saudi hit squad Maher Mutreb told Khashoggi that he had to be taken back to Riyadh because of an Interpol order against him. The journalist objected saying there was no legal case against him and that his fiancee was waiting for him outside. Sabah also published Khashoggi's last words before he was apparently drugged and lost consciousness. "Don't cover my mouth," he told his killers, according to Sabah. "I have asthma, don't do it. You'll suffocate me."