ISTANBUL — Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it had indicted 11 people in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, and that it was seeking the death penalty against five of them for ordering and committing the killing, according the country’s public prosecutor.
The prosecutor, speaking at a news conference in the Saudi capital, said that the former deputy head of intelligence, Ahmed al-Asiri, had dispatched a Saudi team to Turkey to negotiate Khashoggi’s return to Saudi Arabia. The order to kill the journalist came from the head of the Saudi team in Istanbul, the prosecutor added.
Officials in several countries have said it is unlikely Khashoggi could have been killed without the knowledge of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de-facto leader. But no definitive evidence has emerged showing Mohammed ordered the operation. Saudi officials deny that the crown prince was in any way responsible for Khashoggi’s death.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the killing was premeditated and that the orders to kill Khashoggi had come from “the highest levels of the Saudi government,” without specifying exactly who was responsible.
A member of the Saudi team that killed Khashoggi made a phone call shortly after the journalist’s death, giving instructions to someone in Saudi Arabia to “tell your boss” that the assassination had been carried out, according to people familiar with the call. The message appears to have been directed to a person overseeing the team.
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