59-year-old Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered within minutes of walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018
Having defected, Jamal Khashoggi became increasingly critical of the Gulf kingdom especially after the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017. He wrote in The Washington Post about his support for the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the group is seen as a terrorist group by Riyadh.
This stand by the Saudi-born journalist probably led to his being penned down for elimination by the atavistic regime.
One would have expected the journalist, having taken a stand, to be more circumspect in his dealings with his home government, not Jamal Khashoggi. He was promptly lured into visiting the kingdom's consulate in Turkey to pick up his divorce papers. He was quite simply being led to the slaughter.
However, what would have been a routine murder by a nervous government caught the attention of the world provoking outrage around the globe.
After weeks of denials, Saudi Arabia eventually admitted that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate.
Now, in a bid to draw the curtain over the Khashoggi saga, the desert kingdom has sentenced five people to death over the murder. The five are among 11 suspects to have been put on trial in the kingdom in connection with the killing of the Saudi journalist in Turkey.
Not unexpectedly, there are fears that the 'judgement' was a clumsy attempt at image laundering and that the man who actually ordered the killing has been left untouched.
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