French judge to probe Khashoggi killing after complaint against Saudi crown prince

A Paris magistrate will investigate the 2018 assassination of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi after rights groups filed a complaint against Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, French sources told AFP on Saturday.

Both Mohammed Bin Salman and the kingdom faced intense international uproar over the killing in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, which the US intelligence services believe the crown prince was directly responsible for.

A US resident who wrote critically about the oil-rich kingdom in The Washington Post, Khashoggi was strangled and then dismembered inside the Saudi consulate.

Khashoggi’s employer, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), and the rights group Trial International had petitioned the French courts on the matter during Mohammed Bin Salman’s visit to France in July 2022.

They were subsequently joined by a complaint from press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF.

“An investigating judge from the crimes…