One of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's suspected killers has reportedly been arrested while trying to board a flight in France.
French media reported the man, a former Royal Guard of Saudi Arabia, was arrested by authorities at Charles de Gaulle airport, near Paris, as he was about to board a flight to the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
Khashoggi, a US-based journalist and opinion writer, was killed and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey by a group of Saudi agents in October 2018.
His remains have never been found.
A police source told Reuters the arrested man was Khaled Aedh Al-Otaibi.
He had been on the French wanted list and was arrested over a warrant issued by Turkey in 2019, the source told Reuters.
France's Interior Ministry has declined to comment, but it is understood French prosecutors will now begin proceedings for a potential extradition to Turkey.
Al-Otaibi is named in both UK and US sanctions lists as being involved in Khashoggi's murder.
A report by Britain's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said Al-Otaibi — whom it mentions also goes by Altaibi — "as involved in the unlawful killing of Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul on 2 October 2018, as part of the 15-man team sent to Turkey by Saudi authorities".
Al-Otaibi, born in 1988, "was involved in the concealment of evidence at the Saudi General Consul's residence following the killing", that report said, while a US Department of Treasury report said: "The Saudi officials we are sanctioning were involved in the abhorrent killing of Jamal Khashoggi."
Fiancée calls for suspect to be tried in France
When Jamal Khashoggi was last seen alive on the afternoon of October 2, 2018, he was walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect documents that would allow him to marry his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting for him outside.
Today she welcomed the arrest of one her partner's suspected killers, and called for him to be tried in France.
"France should try him for his crime, or extradite him to a country able and willing to genuinely investigate and prosecute him as well as the person who gave the order to murder Jamal," she tweeted.
A trial was held in Saudi Arabia for some of the agents involved in Khashoggi's murder, with five sentenced to death before they were spared execution and instead sentenced to 20 years' jail.
Khashoggi had originally been a Saudi royal insider before becoming a critic of the kingdom's leadership and its de-facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Crown Prince Mohammed has maintained he had no prior knowledge of the operation to kill Khashoggi.
A US intelligence assessment made public under US President Joe Biden, however, determined the Crown Prince approved the operation.
At the time of Khashoggi's killing, the Crown Prince was being lauded for ushering in social reforms transforming life for many inside the country.
Khashoggi had been writing columns for The Washington Post criticising the Crown Prince's brash foreign policy moves and simultaneous crackdown on activists and perceived critics, including women's rights activists, writers, clerics and economists.
France is one of Saudi Arabia's main arms suppliers, but it has faced pressure to review its sales because of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen, now creating one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron met with Crown Prince Salman in Saudi Arabia, becoming the first major Western leader to visit the kingdom since Khashoggi's murder.
He rejected accusations that he was legitimising the Crown Prince, saying the region's many crises could not be dealt with by ignoring Saudi Arabia.
ABC/wires
