On Tuesday, December 7, 2021, French police arrested a suspected member of the hit squad that killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as the man was about to board a flight from Paris to Riyadh.
The man, Khaled Aedh Alotaibi, was detained by border police on an arrest warrant issued by Turkey, as he was about to board a flight to Riyadh from Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport. It was unclear how or when he had arrived in France.
Khaled Aedh Alotaibi is one of 26 Saudis charged in absentia by Turkey over the killing, in a trial that got under way in October 2020. Two of the 26 being tried in absentia in Turkey are former aides to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Alotaibi is also one of 17 people whom the US Treasury designated for sanctions in 2018 over their role in the murder. He is also under Canadian and British sanctions.
In her 2019 report for the United Nations into the killing, Agnes Callamard, a former UN investigator, named Alotaibi as being part of a Saudi team that killed Khashoggi and dismembered his body before flying back to Saudi Arabia.
UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric had earlier said that an investigation was necessary “to ensure full examination of and accountability for human rights violations committed in the case”.
“The Secretary-General also reiterates the UN’s commitment to ensuring freedom of expression and protection of journalists”, Mr. Dujarric continued,
Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) renews calls for justice for the assassination of Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
AOHR UK also calls for holding all those responsible for the Saudi journalist’s murder to account and for an end to impunity for violence against journalists.
