Saudi Public Prosecution: Head of negotiating team ordered killing of Khashoggi

Saudi Arabia’s Public Prosecution said on Thursday that the head of the team tasked with convincing Jamal Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia was the one who ordered the killing of the journalist.

Investigations showed that the decision to form the team was made by the former Deputy President of the General Intelligence Presidency, and that the person who ordered the killing of the Saudi citizen and journalist on October 2, in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, was the leader of this negotiating team.

During a press conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh, the Public Prosecution’s spokesperson explained that the team failed to persuade Khashoggi to return home, afterwhich the head of the negotiation team concluded that it would not be possible to transfer the victim by force to the safe location in case the negotiations with him to return failed. The head of the negotiation team decided to murder the victim if the negotiations failed. The investigation concluded that the incident resulted in murder.

The Saudi Public Prosecution pointed out that the investigations revealed the method of the crime carried out against Khashoggi, where a physical altercation broke out, then he was injected with a large amount of drugs leading to his death.

He added that Jamal Khashoggi’s body was dismembered and then transferred outside the Saudi consulate building.