Saudi Arabia claims France arrested the wrong suspect over the assassination of Khashoggi
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Roshan Amiri
- . December 8, 2021
- . Update: December 9, 2021 1:30 pm
Saudi arabia–On Tuesday, RTL radio reported that the French authorities had arrested Khaled Al-Otaibi, who was suspected of being part of the team that assassinated Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. French radio indicated that the suspect was arrested at Charles de Gaulle Airport while he was preparing to travel to Saudi Arabia.
Later, a source in the French police confirmed the news of the arrest, noting that ‘the detainee was on a French “wanted list” , and France acted on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by Turkey in 2019’.
Al-Otaibi will remain in pretrial detention until Wednesday, when he will appear before the Public Prosecution at the Court of Appeal in Paris, and will be notified of the arrest warrant, according to the source.
Al-Otaibi has the right to refuse extradition to Turkey. In this case, the French judiciary may request that he remains in France free under judicial supervision or under extradition until Turkey requests his extradition. In the following weeks , the appeals court must rule on the extradition request.
On the other hand,the Saudi embassy in Paris issued a statement claiming that the Saudi man arrested in France “had nothing to do with the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, and demanded his ‘immediate release.’ A Saudi official pointed out that those convicted of the crime are currently serving their sentences in Saudi Arabia.
