Daily US Times: Saudi Arabia has issued “final verdicts” against eight suspects in the murder of Washington Post journalist and a vocal critic of Saudi regime Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 — sentencing five of the defendants to 20 years in prison — the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) has reported, citing a public prosecutor spokesman.
Two defendants faced seven years in prison, and one got sentence of 10 years, SPA reported on Monday.
The verdicts come after Khashoggi’s family “pardoned” five of the suspects in May, thereby sparing them the death penalty.
The UN Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial Killings Agnes Callamard, who lead an independent investigation into the murder, called the verdicts a “parody of justice” on Monday.
Callamard wrote on Twitter: “The Saudi Prosecutor performed one more act today in this parody of justice. But these verdicts carry no legal or moral legitimacy. They came at the end of a process which was neither fair, nor just, or transparent.”
She added: “The 5 hit men are sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, but the high-level officials who organized and embraced the execution of Jamal Khashoggi have walked free from the start — barely touched by the investigation and trial.”
Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of the late Jamal Khashoggi, called the ruling a “mockery of justice” and a “farce.”
She released a statement on her Twitter account Monday, where she said the most important questions surrounding Khashoggi’s murder remain unanswered.
Cengiz said: “The Saudi authorities are closing the case without the world knowing the truth of who is responsible for Jamal’s murder.”
”Who planned it, who ordered it, where is his body?” she asked.
Jamal Khashoggi — a royal insider-turned-critic and Washington Post columnist — was killed and allegedly dismembered after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. Mr Khashoggi went into the building to collect documents for his upcoming wedding.
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