A suspect in the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was arrested in France on Tuesday, according to a French court official.
According to the official, in accordance with the typical traditions of the French legal system, the suspect demanded anonymity.
According to local media quoting judicial sources, Khaled Aedh Al-Otaibi was seized by border police as he was boarding a flight to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital.
In 2018, the US Treasury sanctioned over a dozen Saudi officials in connection with Khashoggi’s murder and dismemberment at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Al-Otaibi was one of them.
The arrested man “had nothing to do with the case in question,” according to the Saudi Embassy in Paris, which expects his quick release.
After being persuaded to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by Saudi authorities in October 2018, Khashoggi was brutally murdered and presumably dismembered.
