Paris: The French authorities were looking for Wednesday to confirm the identity of a man arrested for the suspicion of playing a key role in the key murder of Jamal Khashoggi’s Saudi journalist after Saudi Arabia insisted that the suspect was a victim of erroneous identity .
The man, with a passport on behalf of Khaled Alotáibi was arrested by the French border police at the main airport in Paris, on Tuesday, since he prepared to board a flight to Riyadh, police said and judicial sources.
A man named Khaled Alotabi is one of the 26 in the trial in Absence by Turkey because he was part of the squad of the blow that held Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He has also been sanctioned by the Treasury of the United States for the role of him in the murder.
The man was arrested after an Interpol red warning was activated at Turkey’s request, as he passed through passport control, he said a source close to the case, which he asked him not to identify.
But the Embassy of Saudi in Paris issued a statement at the end of Tuesday by saying that the man arrested “has nothing to do with the case in question” and demanded his immediate release.
A security source in Saudi Arabia added that “Khaled Alotáibi” was a very common name in the kingdom, and that the Alotaibi the French thought they were actually holding time in prison in Saudi Arabia along with “all the defendants in the case” .
Twenty-six Saudi are now in trial in Absence in Istanbul on the murder in a process that began in October 2020. No Saudi official has faced justice in person in Turkey for murder.
Alotabi is also one of 17 people who the Treasury of the United States appointed for sanctions in 2018 on the role of him in the murder.
The murder provoked international indignation that continues to reverbent, with Western intelligence agencies accusing the de facto prince of the Kingdom, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to authorize murder.
Identity being confirmed
A source close to the case said that man can stop up to 48 hours, while more checks are carried out in the identity of him.
If he confirms as a suspect member of the murder team, he will appear before the French prosecutors, ahead of any possible extradition procedure if Turkey made a request for this type.
The reporters of the Border Media Rights Organization (RSF) called the “excellent news” on Tuesday and said that it had submitted a legal complaint with Paris prosecutors against Alotaibi for murders, torture and enforced disappearances in October 2019 .
RSF said he had maintained “total confidentiality” on the complaint to improve the possibilities of the arrest of him during any visit to France. The case was finally closed by the office of the prosecutor in the absence of any indication of the presence of him in France, but RSF said that now reactive the case.
However, Saudi Arabia insists that the legal process it carried out in Khashoggi’s murder has been completed and there is no need for more arrests.
“The Saudi Judicial Power has issued verdicts against all those who participated in Jamal Khashoggi’s atrinous murder, all of them are currently fulfilling their sentences,” said the Paris embassy.
In September 2020, a Saudi court annulled five death sentences issued after a closed trial in Saudi Arabia, sentenced by the defendants at 20 years in prison.
Not forgotten”
Khashoggi: A leading Saudi who lived in self-espt in the United States and wrote for Washington Post, entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 to present documents to marry Him’s Turkish promise.
According to US and Turkish officials, a Saudi Saudi Squadron waaked strangled and dismembered him, who has never recovered.
The arrest on Tuesday comes only days after the French President, Emmanuel Macron, defended his decision to include Saudi Arabia on a journey through the Gulf States, saying that the visit did not mean that he had “forgotten” about the case of Khashoggi.