Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, columnist and author, was murdered after going to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on 02 October 2018 to do some paperwork.

He was known to criticise the reform plans of the Crown Prince at a time when many human rights defenders have been arrested. He was a contributor to the “Washington Post” and was internationally respected for his contributions to “Al-Watan” newspaper which became a platform for Saudi progressives. He also contributed to the BBC and was the former general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel, which was launched in Bahrain in 2015 but immediately shut down. Khashoggi left Saudi Arabia in 2017 as arrests of journalists, human rights defenders and activists began to escalate.

On 07 September 2020, the Criminal Court in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, issued its final verdicts in the case of the murder of Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on 02 October 2018. The sentences included imprisonment of eight men for periods ranging from seven to 20 years. The court overturned five death sentences originally handed down in the case. The spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Office stated that the court had sentenced five of the convicted to 20 years in prison, one of them to 10 years in prison and two of them to seven years in prison. 

The Public Prosecution also acquitted the former advisor to the crown prince, Saud Al-Qahtani, the consul in Istanbul Muhammad Al-Otaibi, and Major General Ahmed Al-Asiri, the former deputy director of intelligence. No charges were brought against them, and they were released.

Ahead of World Press Freedom Day in May 2021, on behalf of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), French human rights lawyer William Bourdon lodged an official complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office in Paris against Saudi Major General Ahmed Hassan Mohammad Al-Asiri, a close confidant and adviser to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Al-Asiri is the former deputy head of the Saudi intelligence agency, Al-Mukhabarat Al-A’amah, and the former spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, and came to prominence internationally for his role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

GCHR previously welcomed the report released on 19 June 2019 by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary killings, Agnès Callamard. The report, which was the result of a six-month probe investigating the killing of Khashoggi, found the Saudi government responsible for the “premeditated execution” of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.