Saudi prosecutor: Intelligence officer ordered Khashoggi’s death

Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor has concluded that an intelligence officer ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s death.

Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and journalist with Washington Post who was on exile in the US, was killed in October at the Saudi’s consulate in Turkey where he had gone to get documents for his marriage.

His death had sparked international outrage with many pointing accusation finger at Mohammed bin Salam, Saudi’s crown prince.

Saudi authorities had earlier denied knowledge of his death, saying he might have been killed in a fistfight.

On Thursday, however, Shaalan al-Shaalan, deputy public prosecutor and spokesman for the prosecutor announced that after an investigation, they found that the order to kill the journalist had come from one of the leaders of the Saudi team in Istanbul, Turkey’s capital.

Distancing the crown prince from Kasogghi’s death, he said the team sent to Istanbul with orders to bring him alive killed him instead and dismembered his body.

“The investigation concluded that the crime was carried out after a physical altercation with the victim where he was forcibly restrained and injected with a large amount of drug resulting in an overdose that led to his death,” a statement from the prosecutor read.

The journalist’s body, according to the prosecutor, was then dismembered and taken to one of the local collaborators.

Earlier, the US treasury said it would sanction 17 persons linked to murder of Kashoggi. On the list is Saud al-Qahtani, an adviser to the crown prince.