Agnes Callamard, the United Nations special rapporteur asked to investigate the possibility of state involvement in the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashogi, has said in her report Wednesday that enough evidence exists to extend the investigation to top Saudi Crowned Princes.
Khashoggi was killed by a team from Saudi Arabia in the country’s consulate in Istanbul Turkey.
The kingdom has always maintained that the journalist’s assassination was a rogue operation but the UN investigator insisted that the execution was extra judicial.
The report quoted Callamard as saying that there is, “credible evidence, warranting further investigation of high-level Saudi officials’ individual liability, including the crown prince’s”.
The report concluded that Khashoggi’s death was “an extrajudicial killing for which the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible”.
“From the perspective of international human rights law, state responsibility is not a question of, for example, which of the state officials ordered Mr Khashoggi’s death; whether one or more ordered a kidnapping that was botched and then became an accidental killing; or whether the officers acted on their own initiative or ultra vires [beyond their authority],” the report noted.
The oil-rich Arab state has put 11 people on a closed-door trial for the ‘rogue operation’.
The US ally, who is prosecuting a bloody war in Yemen, said five persons had confessed to killing Khashoggi and the country’s prosecutors were seeking the death sentence for them.
According to Ms Callamard, the trial failed to meet international procedural and substantive standards. She called for it to be suspended.
