UN on Saudi Khashoggi ruling: Punishment doesn’t fit the crime

The United Nations has condemned the disproportion between a Saudi court ruling on the 2018 assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the enormity of the crime.

"This is case where there has not been proper transparency in the justice process, those responsible should be prosecuted and given sentences commensurate with the crime," UN Spokesman Rupert Colville told a Geneva briefing on Tuesday.

"There is a whole issue of transparency and accountability in the case," he added, a day after a Saudi court sufficed to jailing eight people for between seven and 20 years over the atrocity.

According to Press TV, Khashoggi was killed and dismembered at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2 2018 after entering the premises to collect documents for a planned wedding.

The Washington Post, for which he was a columnist, reported in November 2018 that the CIA had concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had personally ordered his killing by a hit squad at the consulate.

The victim used to critique bin Salman’s policies, including the deadly war the kingdom is leading against its impoverished southern neighbor Yemen.

Khashoggi’s family ironically pardoned the alleged perpetrators four months before the ruling.

Khalil Jahshan, from the Arab Center in Washington, DC, a friend of the Khashoggi family, told Al Jazeera, “According to legal practice in Saudi Arabia, the family has a right to commute any sentence, and the family has issued such a declaration - most probably under duress. I don't think it was done freely, knowing the family."

He noted the Saudi Prosecutor's Office has said that the ruling "closes the case forever," while the critic’s body was still missing.

ME