A Saudi arrested Tuesday in France, who was suspected of being a member of the commando party involved in the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, is not the suspect wanted by Turkey and has been released, the prosecutor said on Wednesday. General of Paris.
The man was arrested “on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by the Turkish judicial authorities on November 5, 2018 in connection with the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” Rémy Heitz said in a statement.
“The thorough checks relating to the identity of this person made it possible to establish that the warrant did not apply to her” and “he was released”, he added.
“It’s an almost perfect disambiguation,” a source familiar with the matter told AFP.
“The cross-checked research files corresponded to the profile of al-Otaibi, same month, year and place of birth”, detailed the same source.
“There was a physical resemblance”, added the source, specifying that “it is the judicial elements arrived from Turkey which made release this man”.
At the time of his passage through control Tuesday morning at the Parisian airport of Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle, while he was about to take a flight to Riyadh, he had presented a passport in the name of Khaled al-Otaibi and the Interpol’s red notice had been activated, a source familiar with the matter explained.
He was then arrested by the border police and placed in judicial detention under the international arrest warrant issued by Turkey.
Checks on his identity were carried out by the French authorities, but the Saudi Arabian embassy in Paris assured Tuesday evening that “the citizen in question has no connection” with the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and demanded his “Immediate release”.
A source belonging to the Saudi security services said on Tuesday that “the real Khaled al-Otaibi and all the accused in this case are imprisoned within the Saudi kingdom”.
“There are hundreds of Saudis who bear the same name,” she stressed.
Critic of Saudi power after being close to it, Jamal Khashoggi, resident in the United States and columnist for the daily Washington post, was assassinated on October 2, 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a team of agents from Saudi Arabia.
His dismembered body has never been found.
A US intelligence report accuses Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed ben Salman of having “validated” the assassination. After denying the murder, Riyadh ended up saying that it had been committed by Saudi agents who acted alone.
“I just want to say that I will continue to seek justice no matter what,” Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of Mr. Khashoggi, told AFP after the release of the arrested man.
After an opaque trial in Saudi Arabia, five unidentified Saudis were sentenced to death and three to prison terms – death sentences have since been commuted.
The foreign press had been banned from covering this trial. Nevertheless, Turkish diplomats and permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – were allowed to attend, as observers.
Most of the names of the defendants have not been released so far, which could explain why Interpol’s non-public red notice was still active.