Saudi Arabia has issued « final verdicts » against eight suspects in the murder of Washington Post journalist 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.
Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial Killings who lead an independent investigation into the murder, called the verdicts a « parody of justice » on Monday. « 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, » Callamard wrote on Twitter.
