PARIS — A person detained in connection with the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Paris airport was not the wanted man and has been released, the Paris prosecutor said in a statement Wednesday.
“At the end of his judicial detention, he was released,” added the statement, which was shared with NBC News by his office. It did not explain how or why officials had detained the wrong man.
The news comes after two officials close to the investigation told NBC News Tuesday that a 33-year-old man of Saudi origin with the name Khalid Alotaibi, had been arrested in connection with Khashoggi’s murder at border control in Charles de Gaulle airport. His passport check flagged an Interpol Red notice for his name issued by Turkish authorities, they said.
A Khalid Alotaibi is listed by the Treasury Department as one of 17 Saudis sanctioned in 2018 for their roles in the murder of Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist and critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday, the Saudi Embassy in France released a statement saying media reports were “inaccurate” and that the arrested person “had no link” to the “Khashoggi affair.”
“The Saudi embassy awaits their immediate release,” the statement said, adding that the Saudi justice system had issued verdicts against those responsible for the journalist’s murder and that they were currently serving their respective sentences.
Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, had welcomed the arrest Tuesday, posting on Twitter that France should try him for his crime or extradite him to a country “able and willing” to genuinely investigate and prosecute him.
The arrest came as the crown prince pushed to change the narrative around his tainted leadership, and move the Saudi story on from Khashoggi.
The Washington Post journalist’s gruesome murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 horrified the world and tarnished Crown Prince Mohammed’s reputation as a modernizer and someone Western governments could work with.
The latest plot twist comes just days after French President Emmanuel Macron became the first major Western leader to visit the kingdom in the wake of Khashoggi’s murder — a coup for the crown prince.
This week the de facto leader is on a tour of Gulf states that Middle East watchers say aims to present him as a regional leader and a welcomed guest in the Gulf. On Sunday, he posed in front of the world’s media beaming ahead of a nail-biting Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Having first denied involvement in Khashoggi’s killing, the Saudi government eventually admitted to it, but said he had died by accident as the team tried to forcibly extradite him.
The Saudis have said the team acted independently and that the crown prince had no involvement in his death. But in February, the Biden administration released an intelligence report that concluded that the crown prince approved his killing.
Crown Prince Mohammed said in 2019 that he took “full responsibility” because it happened on his watch, but he denied having ordered Khashoggi’s killing.
Nancy Ing reported from Paris, Saphora Smith reported from London.
Reuters contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
