French judge to probe Jamal Khashoggi killing after complaint against Saudi crown prince

PARIS - A Paris magistrate will investigate the 2018 assassination of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi after rights groups filed a complaint against Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, French sources told AFP on May 16.

Both Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and the kingdom faced intense international uproar over the killing in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, which the US intelligence services believe the crown prince was directly responsible for.

A US resident who wrote critically about the oil-rich kingdom in The Washington Post, Mr Khashoggi was strangled and then dismembered inside the Saudi consulate.

Mr Khashoggi’s employer, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), and the rights group Trial International had petitioned the French courts on the matter during Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s visit to France in July 2022.

They were subsequently joined by a complaint from press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF.

“An investigating judge from the crimes against humanity unit will now investigate the complaint” for torture and enforced disappearances, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office confirmed when contacted by AFP.

It comes after years of legal wrangling, with the prosecutor’s office opposed to opening a case in France on admissibility grounds.

But in a decision handed down on May 11, the court of appeal ruled in the rights groups’ favour, which DAWN hailed as a key step towards obtaining justice for the journalist’s killing.

“The crime of which Jamal Khashoggi was a victim is an abominable crime, decided and planned at the highest level of the Saudi state, which had a journalist executed who was a dissident and independent voice,” said Mr Emmanuel Daoud, a lawyer for RSF.

Trial International’s lawyer, Mr Henri Thulliez, said there “should no longer be any obstacle to opening a judicial investigation into the atrocious crime committed against Jamal Khashoggi”. AFP