Saudi prosecutors said Thursday they will seek the death penalty for five of the 11 people allegedly involved in the murder of dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Although 11 people were charged with involvement, the five people facing capital punishment were directly involved in “ordering and executing the crime,” the Saudi Public Prosecutor’s office said, according to CNN.
Deputy public prosecutor and spokesman Shaalan al-Shaalan told reporters that Khashoggi was tied up and murdered after being injected by a lethal dose of a sedative. His body was dismembered, taken out of the building and delivered to a local collaborator in the murder.
Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul Oct. 2 for a scheduled meeting to obtain the paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancée, and was never seen alive again.
The prosecutor’s office said there was a team of 15 people formed to force Khashoggi to return to his home country of Saudi Arabia. The team was divided into three groups: a negotiation team, an intelligence team, and a logistics team.
According to the prosecutor, the head of the negotiating team was the one who ordered the killing of Khashoggi.
